Supplements – Do I Need Them?

When I work with clients I often end up recommending some supplementation alongside dietary changes. These aren’t essential, but may help speed up the way we address your symptoms.

These could be

• vitamins
• minerals
• probiotics
• digestive aids

You may be wondering why you need to pop pills if you’re eating a healthy diet. Well, there are a few reasons.

Diet deficiency

Unfortunately most people don’t eat a well balanced diet.

Most people don’t reach the ‘9 a day’ for fruits and vegetables recommendation from the WHO.

In fact most of us don’t even eat 5 a day. In 2018 the average intake was 3.7 portions of fruits & vegetables

Change in eating style

We tend to eat out more, have more pre-processed foods than people did 100 years ago. This leaves us with less control over the content of our food.

We also eat a more narrow range of foods these days which may limit the nutrients we are eating.

Processed foods make up your diet

Many of our core foods are heavily processed, removing most of the goodness (e.g. white bread, white rice) and moving away from the whole food.

Your diet or lifestyle may deplete nutrients

There are lots of things in modern life that take nutrients away from our diet. So even if you’re eating well, you might need more than your friend or sister.

Alcohol, calorie restriction diets (e.g. low fat diets), genetic pre-dispositions or common medication can deplete our levels of minerals (e.g. the oral contraceptive pill).

Should I take supplements?

I use supplements as a boost to your dietary changes to speed things along, but I consider their use carefully, and always recommend an end date.

If you’ve got a chronic condition chances are there could be nutrient insufficiency.

Don’t just take nutritional supplements without proper advice, or in place of making dietary changes.

In some cases supplements can help you feel better more quickly, but different nutrients can interfere with each other, creating more problems.