Why Are Supplements Important?

Today more than ever, the significance of dietary supplements has significantly increased. It’s true that the food we consume lacks the essential nutrients our bodies need to function properly, but more than that it is the time we live in and the lifestyles we’ve adopted that prevent us from acquiring the right nutrients in the right amounts from our diets alone.

Dietary supplements are important and here are 7 reasons why this is so:

• You Need Your Nutrients. This may sound cliché, but this is the most important reason that makes supplements important. Balanced nutrition helps prevent, treat, and alleviate an array of health conditions in you. These conditions can be as simple as hair fall and as complicated as cancer, birth defects, or heart problems.  

• To Cover Genetic Deficiencies. Genetic weaknesses are common in humans. Every person requires and consumes different amounts of vitamins and minerals at different rates respectively. Sometimes people have certain genetic deficiencies that may be expressed in the form of an illness. Supplements help cover these deficiencies. 

• Specific Health Conditions. Conditions like menopause, pregnancy, and/or aging call for specific nutrients more than the others. For example, during pregnancy women require more folic acid than the normal requirements.

• Food Storage and Shipping. A lot of food we consume nowadays is stored for long duration and shipped long distances before it reaches us. Both these situations cause the presence of C and B-complex vitamins in the food to deplete – as a result, they never reach your body – unless you take supplements for them.

• The New Agriculture. With agriculturists quickly adopting new and improved methods of growing fruits and vegetables, there is a large quantity of food in the market that is either genetically bred or cultivated in nutritionally deficient soil. What you get on your plate generally lacks the minerals and vitamins your body needs most.

• Poor Eating Habits. We’re almost always in a rush to get done with things at hand. Most of us seldom have time to sit down and properly eat our food – chew it, allow the digestive system to break and extract the nutrients from the food to supply it to the body. Poor digestion leads to poor nutrition.

• Food Choices. Most people when out doing groceries tend to pick food items that can stay in freezer for a longer time and are easier to cook. This means a large quantity of processed or preservative-high food. This type of food generally lacks essential nutrients simply because most of it is lost in the process of making the food last longer. When you cook the same food, it is robbed off the little nutrients that remained. 

While dietary supplements are important, it is always better to focus on getting as many nutrients as you can from a clean, healthy, and balanced diet – but that is obviously not always possible. Eventually, you do need supplements to bridge any gaps in the nutrients consumed and the nutrients required, so make sure you consult a health professional before popping any dietary supplements to avoid adverse drug-nutrient interactions.

It is also important to make sure the supplements you consume are free of or contain minimal artificial sweeteners and flavors. Also avoid supplements with fillers and preservative.

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