Do you feel overwhelmed when you visit the vitamin shop? What is the difference between nutrients and supplements? Wondering if you should take a multivitamin? Vitamins give your body the nutrients it needs so you can be your best throughout the day and when you workout.
But when your mineral and vitamin intake is low, health problems can develop. Some of these health problems can turn into long-term problems. While good nutrition can prevent disease, most foods don’t contain the nutrients that you need. Here are some reasons why you should take supplements.
Reduce Risk Of Chronic Disease
One major reason to take supplements is to reduce your risk of chronic disease. Minerals, nutrients, and vitamins are essential components of enzymes, which increase the chemical reactions in the body. For example, zinc is used to create the hormone called testosterone. Folic acid reduces the risk of birth defects during pregnancy while vitamin D helps to regulate mineral levels in the bloodstream and bones.
When you don’t take supplements and vitamins, health problems can develop. Some of these problems can become long-term problems such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. If you don’t have enough nutrients, you could expect big problems later on down the line. It’s important for your body to get the nutrients that it needs.
Supplements are Safer than Prescription Drugs
Another reason to take supplements has been revealed in various medical studies. Prescription drugs are responsible for 1.9 million hospitalizations each year. In addition, over 117,000 people die in the U.S. from prescription drugs. Not only are prescription drugs dangerous, but they’re expensive.
Supplements have better results with patients and fewer side effects. Not to mention, they’re more affordable than prescription drugs. Niacin is another name for vitamin B3 that’s been found in clinical studies to lower cholesterol levels. It’s more favorable than statin drugs, which come with a long list of side effects.
Supplements Help Boost Metabolism
The obesity epidemic is a result of sugar consumption in the last century. Foods high in sugar tend to have fewer nutrients. Some of the most important nutrients like chromium and magnesium are found missing from these sugary and processed foods. People cannot use sugar as energy and store it as fat.
The answer to this problem would be to reduce your sugar intake, but sugar is in most processed foods. It’s kind of unavoidable unless you eat clean. One way to increase your nutrient intake and lower your sugar intake is to take supplements and maintain a healthy weight. The most important supplements are chromium and magnesium, which work together to combat obesity and diabetes.
Increase Levels of Essential Nutrients
Some people don’t like to take nutrients because they make them go to the bathroom a lot. There is a false misconception that nutrients are never absorbed. A Landmark study found that nutrients are well-absorbed into the bloodstream. The group of patients who took supplements had 78% percent more of these nutrients of their bloodstream than the group that didn’t take supplements.
Food Doesn’t Contain Nutrients
There has been a significant drop in mineral levels in food. A study on mineral depletion found that mineral levels commonly found in fruits, grains, and vegetables decreased as much as 77%. Another study by the University of Texas found that vitamin levels decreased by 37%.
It’s impossible to get all of your nutrients from foods alone. Supplements like multi-minerals and multivitamins can protect your body against nutrient deficiency. The formulation of these minerals and nutrients are important. There’s no point to taking a multivitamin if it doesn’t contain all of the right nutrients needed to be absorbed into your bloodstream to reap those benefits.
Cooking & Microwaving Food Damages Nutrients
The United States Department of Agriculture found that cooking, microwaving, and reheating your food can lead to a significant nutrient loss. Microwaving is one of the biggest ways to reduce nutrient content. Out of the list, steaming is the least damaging. Unless you steam your food, you are not getting the nutrients from your food.
That’s where supplements come in. Some of them come in the form of a singular capsule or multiple capsules. Some of these nutrients are important to have. For example, isothiocyanates can lower a woman’s risk of breast cancer by up to 50%. One pound of broccoli that’s incorporated into one capsule can protect against most types of cancer.
When following a healthy and balanced diet, there are certain foods that you should avoid. For example, you should decrease your meat intake. According to Dr. Jay Davidson from MicrobeFormulas.com, you can protect yourself from parasite infections by avoiding such foods as salad bars, certain types of fish, pork, and certain meats such as game. Unless you eat it fully cooked, avoid it whenever you can.