Dietary supplements are products designed to supplement our diets. These supplements may include vitamins, minerals, herbs or botanicals, amino acids or metabolites; they can come in the form of pills, capsules, powder or drinks.
Drugs undergo rigorous testing procedures, so there may be many false claims on the market.
They can help you get the nutrients you need
Dietary supplements are products containing vitamins or minerals, herbs or other botanicals, amino acids or combinations thereof. They come in the form of tablets, capsules, gummies, liquids and powders; both natural and synthetic versions exist.
Supplements can provide essential nutritional elements when diet alone isn’t sufficient, such as omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil which have been linked with heart health, calcium and vitamin D for bone health, folic acid for birth defect reduction and probiotics for supporting digestive wellbeing.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversees dietary supplement regulations but does not approve them before being sold to the public. Instead, this regulatory agency oversees industry monitoring, facility inspections and testing before sale as well as reviewing NDI notifications from companies as well as investigating adverse event reports from consumers, health care professionals and other sources; additionally it regulates advertising including infomercials.
They can target specific health concerns or goals
Supplements are widely available that address various health concerns or goals, ranging from addressing mineral deficiency to improving exercise performance. You may even find products designed to promote general wellness support via multimineral + multivitamin formulas and probiotics.
Though these supplements can be helpful additions to a healthy diet, they shouldn’t be seen as solutions that cover all your nutritional needs. Achieing optimal health requires eating a wide variety of nutrient-rich foods while cutting back on added sugars, saturated fats and sodium intake.
Be mindful that unlike medicines, dietary supplements do not undergo clinical testing prior to going on sale. Because of this it’s essential that you carefully read any label before purchasing one and check for disclaimers that state it cannot treat, diagnose, mitigate, prevent, or cure any disease. You can report any adverse events related to dietary supplements directly through FDA’s Safety Reporting Portal.
They can be convenient
Dietary supplements may be an essential part of health care, but they should never be seen as a panacea. Many supplements can be harmful in large doses and interact with medicines to cause dangerous side effects; others contain hidden drug levels or contain potentially hazardous ingredients which could harm you; the FDA keeps an updated list of such harmful supplements which have been discovered containing hidden drug levels or leading to side effects like stroke, heart attack and pulmonary embolism.
At each visit, it is crucial that practitioners inquire about dietary supplement use by patients. Some may be unwilling to disclose such details, so practitioners should consider using a patient self-report form to collect this data. The FDA requires manufacturers of dietary supplements to abide by current good manufacturing practices that ensure identity, purity, strength and composition of their products1 but DSHEA does not mandate its evaluation for efficacy evaluations.
They can enhance your performance
Dietary supplements are not subject to stringent regulation and often cannot be trusted. They don’t need FDA approval like medications do and don’t need to demonstrate evidence of safety or effectiveness compared with similar supplements; many bodybuilding supplements marketed for muscle growth contain illegal steroids that may cause liver damage.
Supplement use is becoming more and more widespread at all levels of sport, but in order to assess its benefit properly. While nutritional supplements may provide some indirect or direct performance gains, for optimal athletic performance it is best to develop a diet rich in whole food vitamins and minerals and consult a sports nutrition expert and physician when making informed decisions about supplement use. It’s also essential that athletes consider their own cultural environment when selecting which supplements to take; this decision may depend upon coaching support networks, medical facilities and science support networks as well as other factors.
