What are the five elements of dietary supplements?

One group believes that the whole body belongs to earth, another group believes that the whole body belongs to metal, and there are more pragmatic practitioners who feel that it cannot be generalized and must be determined based on the specific ingredients, processing methods and functions.

The first time I heard the saying that earth belongs to me was last year when I was chatting with an old man from Fujian who has been doing traditional Chinese medicine for more than 30 years. He said that among the five elements, earth controls crops and carries biochemistry. All the supplements we take are derived from the earth and nature at their roots. No matter how finely purified dietary supplements are, the core The heart is also a concentrated nutrient of food and herbs, and its function is to make up for the gap in the transportation and transformation of the earth, spleen and stomach in the human body. For example, some people have a weak spleen and stomach and cannot absorb dietary fiber even when eating vegetables. The essence of supplementing with pure fruit and vegetable fiber tablets is to concentrate the nutrients of the earth and directly use them for human consumption, which is perfect for returning to the earth.

I originally thought this statement was quite correct, until I visited a dietary supplement factory in Kunshan last month and talked about it with the formula developer at the factory. He actually agreed more with the statement that it belongs to gold. He said that in the Five Elements, gold is forged, agglomerated, and precipitated. Look at these supplements. Whether the raw materials are herbs or minerals, they must be extracted, purified, impurity removed, pressed into tablets, or filled into capsules. It is just like refining ore into metal. The original ingredients are removed. The dispersion of impurities leaves behind a heavy essence. When eaten, it goes inward, rather than outwardly dispersing Qi like fresh vegetables. For example, common calcium supplements and iron supplements help to consolidate Qi and blood and converge body fluids. Isn’t that the property of gold?

Both arguments sound reasonable. However, most of my colleagues who work on dietary supplements do not take sides. They feel that imposing uniform attributes on all dietary supplements would be a disadvantage. After all, the scope of dietary supplements is too broad. DHA extracted from deep-sea algae is inherently watery, extracts from plants such as pine pollen and inulin are woody, protein powder and grain peptides extracted from grains are earthy, and mineral tablets are gold-like. There are also compound formulas that have several types of ingredients, and their properties are inherently complicated. It makes no sense to unify them.

I usually don’t focus on the same attributes when I give clients a conditioning plan. For example, last time I chose probiotics for a client who was prone to diarrhea and had weak lung energy. I specifically chose a compound with dried ginger ingredients. I matched his nutritional formula according to the attributes of earth + metal. The effect was much better than rigidly applying a single attribute. To put it bluntly, the five elements are originally tools used to assist in judging their effects, and there is no need to stick to standard answers for the purpose of categorization.