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John Arts - Natural health researcher |
It has been estimated that about 70 per cent of Kiwis use health supplements and of these about 50 per cent use them regularly.
This of course raises two questions. Firstly why should people supplement at all, and secondly if they do, what then should they take?
The main reasons people take supplements is either to stay healthy by preventing premature onset of illness and secondly to help when they are sick.
Supplements available tend to fall into two categories. They are generally either nutritional or medicinal supplements. The nutritional supplements usually include vitamins, minerals, enzymes, various nutritional co-factors and antioxidants mostly from plant extracts. The medicinal products include a wide range of herbal and homeopathic extracts. While medicinal products are most helpful they should not be used instead of nutritional supplements.
If you are basically in good health then a good nutritional maintenance programme is probably all you need. You do not need a cupboard full of supplements. You should only need a comprehensive multi antioxidant that is also a full multivitamin and complete multi mineral and secondly a good stable Omega 3 fish oil supplement.
Be aware that many multi products have low levels of antioxidants, often only a few minerals and in most cases are nothing more than a B complex. If the daily dose is one a day, this should immediately warn that it will not be comprehensive as you cannot fit all the antioxidants and minerals in a single daily dose. If price is an issue you are always better to take less of a good product than to buy something that is cheap but ineffective.
Your daily multi should have all the major antioxidant groups – the flavanols, bioflavonoids, the carotenoids and the antioxidant vitamins and minerals. It should have a full B complex, vitamins A (from beta carotene), C, natural vitamin E and very importantly vitamin D.
If you are unwell, or have some long term health problem, or are at greater risk of developing health problems then you should seriously consider a personalised supplement and diet programme. The core of any such programme would be a maintenance programme as above, but probably at higher doses depending on age, weight and circumstances. To this you may need to add some specific supplements for your type of problem.
John Arts is a natural health commentator and researcher. If you have questions or would like a free health plan you can contact John at john@johnarts.co.nz or phone 07 578 9051 or 0800 423 559. You can join his newsletter at www.johnarts.co.nz