Dietary SUPPLEMENTS
According to Google, “The U.S. dietary supplement industry is a massive market, valued at approximately $69 billion in 2024, with projections to reach over $100 billion by the early 2030s, driven by rising health consciousness, preventive care, and an aging population.”
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.” (click here for more information about supplements). In other words, it’s food. So why waste your money on a supplement if it actually a food derivative? To answer this question, I thought it would be helpful to understand how one gets the supplement material.
Traditional medicine in various cultures recorded the value of food substances that supported health. Subsequently, research scientists delved deeper into the connection between food and health to define the biological effect of food substances at the cellular level. Supplement companies then took these food substances and extracted the ‘active ingredients’ that were responsible for the biological activity. For example, turmeric is an herb/spice and traditional medicine found that it positively influenced 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 evolutionary health advantages conferred by the turmeric root. The advantage of the whole food is referred to as the entourage effect. In other words, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is why the foods are preferable to supplements.
The AARP reported that 70 percent of older Americans use at least one supplement, preparations that include vitamins, minerals, herbs, amino acids, enzymes and other substances. Twenty-nine percent take 4 or more. The primary motivation is to improve overall health (41%), often bridging nutritional gaps. About 50% of the seniors take multi-vitamins. Many vendors suggest that you need to take a multi-vitamin everyday but unless you don’t eat anything with nutritional value this is too much. You may notice that your pee is very yellow after taking a multivitamin and while this is vitamin riboflavin it exemplifies the high amount of vitamin being consumed is rapidly excreted because it exceeds the needs of the body. The fat-soluble vitamins, A, D, E and K, are readily stored in fat cells in the body and can last for weeks or months if you don’t consume any source of these vitamins. The remaining B vitamins and vitamin C are water soluble and are not stored in fat cells but in other organs in the body, where they could last a week or two before reaching a deficiency stage. Unless you have a medical condition specifically addressing vitamin uptake, such as pernicious anemia and B12, it is unlikely you need a daily vitamin supplement.