Many people desire to have a quality lifestyle with a healthy and fit aspect to it. While this might look easy and attainable, it requires a considerable amount of dedication and perseverance to achieve such a feat in life.
Despite having that zeal and affection, some people cannot attain it due to the lack of a healthy and efficient diet. Our active lifestyle barely gives us the time required to keep a track of the desired nutritional intake. Thanks to the presence of vitamin supplements, we can now bridge the gap between such nutritional deficiencies.
However, vitamin supplements have long been termed as ‘ineffective’ and ‘unreliable’, making it a question of concern. Given their nature, let’s find out how effective vitamin supplements really are. Let’s discuss more the pros, cons, and precautions.
Vitamin Supplements: Really Effective?
To break it down, yes, vitamin supplements are actually effective. Thousands and thousands of people, not only adults but also kids and older adults, are nowadays consuming one or more vitamin supplements as a part of their daily diet. The term vitamin and supplement are no longer seen as medicines, they are a part of the modern lifestyle. People across different age groups are voluntarily including these supplements in their diet, to live a healthy and fit life.
These supplements are a generous composition of essential nutrients required by our body to lead a healthy lifestyle. They are:
- Minerals
- Herbs
- Amino acids
- Fats
- Enzymes.
Considering their composition, vitamin supplements are an essential blend of every major nutrient that is required by the body. However, the effectiveness of these dietary supplements depends upon how and by whom they are being consumed.
It’s true that a dietary supplement can act as a support for the nutrients in your body and can fulfill the needs of vitamins to some extent. However, these supplements can never replace the diet which has a variety of food. Such food items are initially the natural source of all these vitamins and minerals.
Pros of consuming Vitamin Supplements:
The advantages are plain and simple, it helps you keep up with the different amounts of rare nutrients that our body fails to keep up with. Besides that, here, we have tried to curate a list of all the possible benefits of consuming vitamin supplements:
- Vitamin D and calcium help maintain strong bones strong and drastically reduce bone loss as we age.
- The presence of Folic acid can lower the risk of few congenital disabilities.
- Omega 3 fatty acids aid the health of cardiovascular muscles.
- Consuming a combination of vitamin C, copper, vitamin E, and zinc can help you improve your immunity systems.
The advantages of consuming individual vitamin supplements are directly related to the ways in which they serve your body.
Cons of Consuming Vitamin Supplements:
No matter the type of vitamin supplement that you are consuming, excessive or overdosage of any supplement is injurious to health. While it might sound like a great idea to fastrack your progress or level the deficiencies in your body, the idea isn’t good.
To mention a few cons of vitamin supplements,
- Vitamin K has an adverse effect: it affects the efficiency of blood thinners, which prevents blood clotting.
- St. John’s wort can accelerate the breaking down of medicines and suppress their effectiveness.
- Vitamin C and vitamin E, which are also known as antioxidant supplements, might reduce or affect cancer treatment, which is chemotherapy.
- Too much vitamin A may cause liver damage, headache and make your bones weak.
During the gestation period, or what we say pregnancy, it’s highly recommended to avoid having supplements. If you believe you had a bad reaction to the vitamin supplement, you need to inform your healthcare provider so that to file a complaint directly to the FDA.
Precautions while taking Vitamin Supplements
Sorry to break this to you but not everything with “Natural” written on it is safe to consume. The positive or negative impact of vitamin supplements on your body is actually dependent upon the chemical engineering behind that product, how it reacts to an individual’s body, the way it is prepared, and the amount of consumption.
Please have your healthcare provider’s approval before taking it with your prescribed medication or replacing the prescribed medication with supplements.
If anyhow you are scheduled for any sort of surgery, please consult your healthcare provider before having the supplements.
Before moving forward with any particular vitamin supplement, first, you need to find the answer to these questions, and for that, you need to visit your healthcare provider and ask them these questions:
Does this product have any sort of risk to your safety?
What is the interval of consumption, and how much should be the amount?
How will you benefit from it?
What is the appropriate dosage?
It is crucial to understand that vitamin supplements are not supposed to replace medication and cannot be expected to cure or treat any particular health condition. You must consult your healthcare provider, practicing physicist, or licensed pharmacist before starting to consume any of them.
Consuming unprescribed supplements can worsen the situation or have some unintended consequences; many health issues can occur that can be short-term or long-term problems, for example, Skin disease, liver failure, blood pressure, diarrhea, allergies, breathing problems, etc.
Stay Extra Cautious with Your Supplements!
supplements are of some benefit for some patients; although they can be available easily at vitamin supplement stores and counters, there are some potential risks associated with it; always consult your doctor specialist before starting to have the supplements.
The vitamin supplements available in the supplement store come with labels consisting of all the facts about it, the amount per serving(doses), and the details of fillers, binders, and flavors. Even though the amount and does are mentioned in the label of that supplementary product, a prescription and guidance from a practicing physicist/doctor is recommended.
