Whether it’s the health food store clerk, a television doctor or a friend passing on some information that she read in a magazine, it doesn’t matter how the information ended up in your brain! Chances are when you walk in to the local health food store or pick up the supplement at a local pharmacy that you aren’t getting what you think you are getting. I, too, for many years purchased supplements at health food stores and it was always the same thing. Why isn’t this working? Well, the truth of the matter is that those supplements are not as pure as you would like to think nor are they tested on a regular basis. This is the argument that the proponents of FDA regulation like to make – that there is no standard to which supplements are held.
However, unlike over the counter or Multi-Level Marketing supplements, those that are nutraceutical grade (think pharmaceutical grade but with nutrients instead of drugs) are tested repeatedly and are often used in clinical studies. This is the key difference between having a remedy work versus throwing your money down the drain and remaining potentially skeptical of the supplement industry or worse! When a nutrient is properly dosed and recommended by a trained nutritionist or medical professional, you get the right dosage for your body weight and cause that you are trying to treat.
How do you tell if the supplement is worth the investment? Well in this case, the dollar amount on the bottle can tell you a great deal. You are getting what you pay for. It’s easy to pop in to a local pharmacy or major warehouse store and pick up a large bottle of multivitamin that will last 3 months for $15.00, but what are you getting really? Lots of fillers, potential contaminants such as mercury in the fish oils you are dutifully consuming, or some other substance you weren’t counting on. So, yes, that $50 bottle of multivitamins IS worth when you know it’s been used in multiple epidemiologic (population) studies and the company is willing to pull a bottle to run a QA on it just because a practitioner calls in and says that ONE patient is having a hard time digesting their product.
If you are interested in upgrading your supplements and making sure you are getting the best for your money and, more importantly, your health contact me and let’s get you headed on the right direction.
