Today, supplements can be found anywhere and everywhere. A simple Google search could give you access to a thousand different supplements, and you can easily find them in stores when trying to shop for something entirely different. Due to this, more than half of the world’s total population is using one supplement or another, and a good majority of these people do not know what those supplements do in the body and if it is what they are supposed to use.
What Are Dietary Supplements?
A dietary supplement is a general term used to refer to different products from vitamins, minerals, enzymes, herbs, and others that add extra nutrients to diets. Supplements are available in specialized stores, supermarkets, and online platforms like iHerb. The most popular option now is online platforms, especially because of different sales and coupons available online like an iHerb promo code from YoursHerbs.
Why Use Supplements?
Dietary supplements and vitamins, particularly iHerb vitamins https://yoursherbs.com/iherb-best-vitamins/, can help you get all the essential nutrients your body needs to function optimally, especially if your meals are not as nutritious as they should be. This does not in any way mean that supplements can be used to replace the nutrients you are to get from your meals. However, they can come in handy as additions to your diet. Here are some benefits you can derive from using dietary supplements:
- Strong bones
- Reduce risks of heart diseases
- Better vision
- High level of energy
Many people have a misconception that these supplements can replace diets or drugs. Supplements do not treat or cure diseases in the body. Though the FDA regulates both, dietary supplements are not subject to the same strict safety and effectiveness regulations as medication.
All supplements do is add nutrients to the body to ensure that it can resist viruses and function optimally. These supplements can be considered special foods that can give the body what it lacks.
Risks
Supplements are great for health. However, they can still expose you to certain risks. If prescriptions are not followed accurately, there is a high chance of having serious side effects. Depending on your current state of health, allergies, other medicines in your body systems, and the dosage of the supplements used, you risk being exposed to various side effects.
Here are some of the side effects you might experience with a supplement overdose:
- Antioxidant supplements (like vitamins C and E) can potentially lessen the effectiveness of some medicines.
- Some supplements will also quicken the digestion of many medicines and reduce their effectiveness in your body system.
- Vitamin K can prevent blood thinners from being able to prevent clotting efficiently.
- Vitamin A can cause headaches and also reduce bone strength.
This is why it is usually advised to seek professional advice or just stick to the recommended dosage. Vitamins, for example, come with dosages recommended by experts to give your body just the right amount of nutrients without any complications.
Precautions
Every dietary supplement comes with a supplement fact sheet. This fact sheet provides information about every ingredient used in creating the supplements and all the compounds involved. The general dosage recommended by the manufacturers is also found on this fact sheet, alongside several other important pieces of information. You must check out the supplement fact sheet to see if there is anything you might react to so you do not eventually put yourself at risk.
In addition, it is recommended that you seek out a medical practitioner if you would like to use a different dose from the recommendation or if you are on other drugs or have other conditions that the supplement could affect.
