Supplements… We need them without a doubt.
I know this can be a controversial subject for some people.
Why do people need to buy dietary supplements and how do I know if I should take supplements too?
Here are the facts:
1. People assume they can get enough nutrients from food. Most of the time this is not correct. Think about your diet for the last 24 hours. It is widely known that we should eat a healthy combination of 3 macronutrients..
Healthy Fats
Healthy Carbohydrates (carbs)
Healthy Proteins
The Institute of Medicine recommends the average healthy adult consume 130 grams of carbohydrates each day or about 45 to 65% of your diet. They recommend a healthy person consume 15 – 25% protein or about 75 to 100 grams, and lastly 25 – 30% fats or 44 to 78 grams of healthy fats (I am doing some exciting research on the benefits of inverting these recommendations and moving fats to 65 – 70% of your diet – but more on that later).
So ask yourself this, what did you eat yesterday?
Did you get the proper amounts of each macronutrient and what was the quality of the foods you ate? Both an apple and a bowl of ice cream contain carbs but one is certainly more healthy.
Also, are you an average healthy adult? Do you require additional or specific nutritional needs?
Vitamin B12
Take Vitamin B-12 for example (key for brain health).
The Mayo Clinic suggests you need 2.4 mcg’s daily; this is the equivalent to 8 servings of chicken breast or almost two sirloin steaks!
I doubt you’re eating that much meat every day.
AND if you’re a vegetarian, you HAVE to take B-12 supplementation as B-12 only comes from animal products.
2. Fruits and vegetables have become less nutritious over time. The main culprit in this disturbing nutritional trend is soil depletion: Modern intensive agricultural methods have stripped increasing amounts of nutrients from the soil where our food grows.
A University of Texas study found that between 1950 and 1999 for 43 different vegetables and fruits
had “reliable declines” in the amount of protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin (vitamin B2) and vitamin C over the past half century.
A Kushi Institute analysis of nutrient data from 1975 to 1997 found
that average calcium levels in 12 fresh vegetables dropped 27 percent; iron levels 37 percent; vitamin A levels 21 percent, and vitamin C levels 30 percent.
And finally in a 62 year study on food composition found
The character, growing method, preparation, source and ultimate presentation of basic staples have changed significantly to the extent that trace elements and micronutrient contents have been severely depleted.
3. As you age, your body not only produces fewer micronutrients like Vitamin D but absorbs fewer nutrients as well.
So, now that you know you need to supplement your diet with nutrients, where do you start?
Some questions…
How do I buy good supplements?
What should I know before I buy supplements?
Which brand do you buy for dietary supplements?
How do I know which supplements to buy?
Are memory supplements good for anything?
Is there a good supplement schedule?
Where can I buy the best discounted supplements?
What is the best way to determine the quality of nutritional supplements?
What are good quality supplements?
What are the best ways to research the claims behind nutritional supplements?
How do I know if the supplements are safe?
How do I know if the supplements will work for me?
How do I know if a supplement brand is legitimate?
How do I know if I can trust a supplement brand?
How do I know which supplements to buy?
The first thing is to find out exactly what vitamins and nutrients you’re lacking.
Create a food diary for a week and discover what vitamins and minerals you are deficient. http://www.nutridiary.com (no affiliation) has a great food calculator and has almost every food and brand of food in its database for free!
Or maybe there is a specific part of your body you would like some nutrient extra support – say your brain for example (wink wink).
So now you know what kinds of supplements you need to take. What next?
The VERY next step is to do your research… I know, BORING.
But you’re spending your hard earned money on supplements so take the time to research which ones are best.
The New York Times just published an article that discovered,
“The authorities said they had run tests on popular store brands of herbal supplements at the retailers — Walmart, Walgreens, Target and GNC —which showed that roughly four out of five of the products contained none of the herbs listed on their labels.”
4 out of 5!
That’s crazy! No, that’s insane and should be considered fraud.
That’s why you need to do your research. Otherwise, you may be consuming nothing but cheap fillers like rice and house plants, or substances that could be hazardous to people with food allergies.
Here’s how to do it.
National Institutes of Health Dietary Supplement Fact Sheets
National Institutes of Health Supplement Label Database
Start by going to the best website on earth right now for supplement information, www.examine.com.
This website has the dosages you need to take to get the actual amount absorbed in your body. AND they have all the studies that you can read about if you’re either into it or bored one day.
Correct dosages are where the supplement industry gets in trouble, and NO ONE is talking about it. I mean NO ONE.
Every supplement claims that they have what you need. But they never talk about the dosages.
Here’s how to discover if they’re lying, even if they have a proprietary blend on their label (companies do that so that competitors can’t steal their formula).
Let’s take a popular brain ingredient like Acetyl-L-Carnitine. The MINIMUM dosage in all the studies where they saw results is 1,000 mg. The average study used 2,000 mg.
I can list 3 of our competitors that use that ingredient with only 500-600 mg. It’s almost impossible to get the full dosage of this ingredient with any blend.
You might as well be flushing those supplements down the toilet. Those low doses won’t do you any good.
The other thing you need to know is that the average size capsule can only hold 700-800 mg.
Why does this matter?
Because if their proprietary blend has 200 mg in it, but the minimum effective dosage for just 1 of the ingredients is 300 mg, you know 100% that they don’t have the correct dosages.
Lastly, the best thing to do is email the company and get what is called their CofA. This is the 3rd party analytical report of their product. We offer ours to all of our customers.
Again, most companies don’t do this so stay away from ones that don’t. Why wouldn’t they do this unless they’re hiding something?
Let’s look at our Alpha Omega DHA, as an example of what you do want to see:
You can see from the label, that we have a total of 1,600 mg of fatty acids per serving. And then, when you look at the EPA and DHA (the essential fatty acids you need), they are a 1:1 ratio – what you want in an omega 3. AND, there is over 500 mg of each in our Alpha Omega DHA. It is made in an pharmaceutical grade, cGMP facility to ensure pure and effective doses.
These studies show that you should have at least 500 mg of DHA in your omega 3 to combat inflammation and help improve your memory. It’s also made from small fish, like mackerel, sardines and anchovies, which are the best kind for fish oil.
We want to show you exactly what a good fish oil look like and good supplements. We do this for ALL our products.
To find out more about our Alpha Omega DHA, click here.
