What are dietary supplements

To put it simply, products that are used to supplement vitamins, minerals, probiotics, herbal extracts and other nutrients or biologically active ingredients in addition to daily diet are not medicines and cannot replace normal diet. Most of the compliant dietary supplements on the Chinese market belong to the category of health foods with the blue hat label.

Many people have polarized opinions on it. They either think it is a health-preserving magic medicine that can cure all diseases, or they think it is a useless thing that charges an IQ tax. In fact, both of these views are a bit extreme. I used to know a friend who insists on preparing for a marathon. He trains a lot on a daily basis and controls his diet strictly. For most of the year, he always felt tired easily and his training state could not improve. After a nutritional test, he found out that he was deficient in zinc and B vitamins. Later, he took a multivitamin supplement with meals for two months, and his condition did improve a lot. ； For couples preparing for pregnancy, community doctors have long advised them to take folic acid supplements three months in advance, which can effectively reduce the risk of fetal neural tube defects. These are proven effective use scenarios.

But there are really many examples of cheating. A while ago, there was a social news story about a girl who followed a blogger and bought seven or eight kinds of whitening and antioxidant supplements in order to fight aging and brighten her skin. She took them one meal a day for half a month and ended up in the hospital with liver damage. In fact, many people have a balanced daily diet. They eat enough meat, eggs, milk, whole grains, vegetables and fruits, but they still insist on supplementing with large doses of vitamins and protein powder. The excess nutrients are either excreted through metabolism and wasted, or accumulate in the body and increase the burden on the liver and kidneys, which is not worth the gain. A while ago, when I was helping my mother sort out the health products she had stocked, I found several so-called "natural hypoglycemic supplements" without blue hats. They were all Amway products from the little square dancing sisters. I checked the ingredients and secretly added western medicine hypoglycemic ingredients. Eating too much of them could easily induce hypoglycemia, so I quickly threw them away for her.

In fact, you can use dietary supplements as a "patch" for your diet. They are only useful when there are gaps in your daily diet - for example, people who are vegetarians all year round are prone to vitamin B12 deficiency, the elderly lose calcium quickly and have poor absorption efficiency, and office workers eat takeout all year round and lack meals. Fiber, at this time, taking the corresponding supplements can fill the gaps in the diet. If your daily diet is very reasonable, but you still supplement it randomly, it is equivalent to sewing a bunch of useless patches on good clothes. You are so worried that you spend money in vain.

There are also many supplements whose effectiveness has not yet been unanimously determined. For example, grape seed and resveratrol, which were very popular in the past few years, have small sample studies saying they have antioxidant effects. There are also larger-scale clinical studies saying there is no difference between daily supplements and placebos. There is also melatonin, which is often taken by many people with insomnia. Currently, it has only been proven that it can alleviate short-term insomnia caused by jet lag and circadian rhythm disorders. The academic community has not yet made a clear conclusion on whether long-term consumption will affect the secretion of hormones. If you encounter such uncertainty, it is best to ask a doctor or nutritionist first, and do not buy blindly following Internet celebrity bloggers.

Oh, by the way, don’t believe those supplements that claim to cure diseases. Compliant products clearly state that they cannot replace drug treatment. If you have been diagnosed with a certain disease, it is important to take the medicine honestly and according to the doctor’s instructions. Don’t think about taking supplements to cure the disease, which will delay the condition.