One of my pet peeves is hearing healthcare practitioners say “You don’t need supplements.”
On the other hand, I’m also bugged by the practitioners who push supplements galore.
Whether or not to use dietary supplements is a “IT DEPENDS” scenario and about 99.999% of individuals should consult with a Registered Dietitian before taking supplements.
3 Reasons to do a Dietary Supplement Review
First of all, the supplements I’m referring to here are vitamins, minerals, botanicals/herbals, and amino acids. We’ll leave ergogenic aids and sports supplements for another time.
1. Is it right for you? (aka “Do you need it?”)
This may be in the Ms. Obvious category, but the majority of people still don’t understand this critical decision point.
In order to understand whether you need a supplement, we gotta know what your daily nutrition offers you. We have to go through questions such as these:
What nutrients do you get through your food choices and typical eating patterns? (this is better answered with a full nutrition assessment!)
Where are the gaps?
What is your blood test or other diagnostic testing showing?
What do you need as an athlete or active individual?
What medical condition are you dealing with?
What life cycle stage are you? (young adult, postpartum, postmenopause, etc.)
What are other signs/symptoms or complaints?
As Registered Dietitians, we not only do a thorough assessment of your nutrition status, but we also examine the safety and efficacy of dietary supplements. This means cross-referencing peer-reviewed research and various research databases to make sure we aren’t causing harm or throwing whackadoodle weirdness your way. It’s also necessary to assess your medications to be sure we don’t encounter any negative drug-nutrient interactions.
2. Got absorption?
There’s a whole lot more to supplements than the 1-click Amazon purchase and the pop-the-pill action.
We’ve got to give attention to these aspects of dietary supplements:
taking at the right time of day
taking with (or without) food AND the right kind of food since we know some supplements have ‘inhibitors or helpers’ that influence absorption
ensuring the dosage is appropriate
choosing a high quality formulation and ideally, one that has been lab tested and verified to actually contain what it’s supposed to
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve met athletes who were wasting their hard-earned $$ on supplements because they weren’t given proper education and guidance on the aforementioned details.
3. Monitoring & Fine-tuning Plan
Some supplements are certainly for temporary use, while others need to be continued longer term.
Remember… it depends.
Just like with medications or other treatment protocols, periodic review, assessment, and adjustment is a must.
When you’re ready to do an assessment, hit us up and let’s get this piece dialed in to give you confidence and guidance with your supplement regimen.
Thanks for reading,
Dina