The effects and effects of dietary supplements on the human body

The essence of dietary supplements is a "supplementary patch" for daily diet. They have no magical curative or health-care effects, nor are they worthless IQ taxes. Whether they are useful or not depends entirely on whether the user really has the corresponding nutrient gap, and whether the dosage and type of supplement are scientific. Regardless of the premise, talking about good or bad is just a hoax.

To be honest, when I was doing community nutrition consultation a few years ago, I met a girl born after 1995. Her gums had been bleeding for almost half a year. She had tried cleaning her teeth and changing her toothpaste to no avail. A blood test showed that her vitamin C level was only half of the lower limit of the reference value. After asking her, I found out that she only ate takeaways. The vegetables she ate in a week did not add up to a pound, and she rarely even touched fruits. I asked her to take a basic vitamin C supplement of 100mg every day. I didn’t let her buy the whitening products that cost tens of yuan a bottle, but the small white bottles that cost two yuan a bottle at the drug store. Two weeks later, she came to me specifically and said that there was finally no blood after brushing her teeth. Are you saying supplements are useless at this time? That really means standing and talking without back pain.

Don’t believe it, my mother went through the opposite trap two years ago. I heard from a health account that vitamin E is anti-oxidant and anti-aging. I took three pills a day, and if I took it for three months, my period would be disrupted. I went to the hospital to find out that it was excessive intake of fat-soluble vitamins, which were accumulated in the body and could not be metabolized, causing poisoning. It was also at that time that I realized that the public’s perception of supplements is either deified or beaten to death, and few people understand the middle level.

What’s interesting is that the current debate about supplements in the nutrition circle is actually not about the same thing at all. Those who insist that "supplements are all IQ taxes" are mostly "food first" people. The core view is that as long as a balanced diet is achieved, all nutrients can be obtained from food, and there is no need for additional supplements. This statement is true. Where is the dietary pagoda of Chinese residents? One pound a day Half a pound of fruit, 300ml of milk, an egg, two ounces of meat, and a handful of grains and nuts, the nutrients that ordinary people need are indeed covered. I have friends who cook for themselves all year round, and the nutrient levels in the annual physical examination are all within the optimal range. It is true that there is no need to take half a supplement. But the question is, how many people can meet the standard now? Last year's nutrition monitoring data of Chinese residents showed that more than 80% of people had insufficient intake of vitamins B1 and B2, and more than 90% of people did not meet the recommended amount of vitamin D. You can't ask office workers who work overtime until 10 o'clock every day to spend two hours after get off work to get themselves a nutritionally balanced meal, right?

This is also the core logic of the "precision supplement school": there are natural gaps in the diet structure of modern people, coupled with the needs of special periods and special groups of people, appropriate supplementation will have clear benefits. For example, pregnant women should take folic acid supplements, which is clearly required by the National Health Commission. The bioavailability of folic acid in food is only half that of supplements. If you really need to eat spinach to get enough, you would have to eat three to four kilograms a day, which is obviously unrealistic. ； Another example is that vegans must supplement B12. This nutrient is almost only found in animal-source foods. Long-term deficiency can cause irreversible nerve damage and cannot be supplemented by eating. ； There are also elderly people who lose calcium quickly, have weak gastrointestinal absorption capacity, and do not supplement enough by drinking milk. Taking calcium tablets with vitamin D can indeed reduce the risk of osteoporosis. These are all based on clear evidence-based medicine, and are not the effects of businessmen.

Of course, the risks must be fully explained. I still don’t recommend ordinary people to buy high-priced functional supplements that are claimed to be “anti-cancer”, “whitening” and “anti-aging”. The Lancet published a study a few years ago, which showed that excessive supplementation of β-carotene will significantly increase the risk of lung cancer in smokers. There are also many people who eat vitamin C like sugar, several grams a day, and end up with kidney stones. To put it bluntly, the role of supplements is very narrow: they can only fill the gap in the diet, cannot replace normal meals, and cannot cure diseases. Those who say that taking supplements can cure diabetes and eliminate nodules are all liars.

I only put a vitamin D gummy in my bag now. I sit in the office every day and don’t get much sunlight. Every year when I take a physical exam, my vitamin D is just on the edge of the passing line. I feel reassured by taking a supplement. When I was working out a few years ago, I didn’t eat enough protein. I couldn’t swallow seven or eight eggs a day. I also drank whey protein for a while, which was really convenient. But then I stopped working out. I could eat enough fish, shrimp, eggs, and milk every meal. I didn’t touch the can of protein powder after it expired.

You really don’t need to think about this thing too complicated, just think of it as an emergency patch: I have oral ulcers caused by eating takeout every day, so I first thought about eating more dark green vegetables, but I really can’t do it. Adding some B complex can really relieve the pain.； My legs get cramps when I can’t get any sun in winter. It’s more comfortable to supplement with some calcium and D than to carry it hard. ； When you're pregnant, follow your doctor's advice and take folic acid. Just don't buy the lady's brand with a bunch of messy ingredients. If you have a regular and balanced diet with no gaps, eating well is better than taking any supplements, and you won’t be wasting your money.