why supplements often fall short

What is a dietary supplement? “A dietary (or food) supplement is a concentrated product taken orally—in forms like pills, capsules, powders, or liquids—designed to add nutrients or beneficial substances to the diet. They contain ingredients such as vitamins, minerals, herbs, amino acids, or enzymes, intended to enhance health or correct nutritional deficiencies.” Research scientists delved deep into the connection between food and health to define the biological effect of food at the cellular level. Supplement companies take these foods and extract the ‘active ingredients’ that research indicated were responsible for the biological activity. For example, turmeric is an herb/spice and has been found to positively influence health. Further studies identified the chemicals in the turmeric root, called curcuminoids, as the active ingredients in the herb. Now curcumin, and some of its derivatives, are sold as health supplements. The advantage of the supplement is that you need a smaller amount of the active compared to its source. In our example of turmeric, a 50mg capsule of curcumin is equivalent to about 3000mg of turmeric root powder. The downside, however, is that you lose all of the advantages conferred by consuming an intact version of the turmeric root. In other words, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is why whole foods are preferable to supplements.

Supplements often fall short because when we isolate a nutrient into a pill, we lose the matrix of the whole food profile. A major takeaway is that Mother Nature rarely packages nutrients in isolation. The ‘entourage’ or the whole food profile provides instructions to your body to use the nutrients safely and efficiently.

Any supplement you do decide to consume should be taken mindfully and with less frequency than you think.