How to take dietary supplements

The core consumption principles of dietary supplements can be stated clearly in one sentence - supplement when missing, choose according to needs, follow instructions or doctor's advice first, and can never replace a daily balanced diet.

A while ago, I helped my aunt sort out the supplement basket piled up on the sideboard. Seven or eight bottles of various sizes were squeezed together, including fish oil, grape seed, B-complex complex, and internet celebrity liver-protecting tablets. She always said that she would grab a handful and stuff them in her mouth when she remembered it, sometimes on an empty stomach and sometimes just after eating. After taking it for more than half a year, she still didn’t feel any effect, and she always asked me if I bought fake products. In fact, it’s not that the product is wrong, but the way of eating is fundamentally wrong.

Now regarding the prerequisites for taking supplements, there are actually two very mainstream views, and there is no absolute right or wrong. One group is "low-dose preventive supplementation." For example, office workers who sit in the office, stay up late, and eat takeout every day can hardly ensure that they eat one pound of vegetables and half a pound of fruit every day. They can just take a low-dose multivitamin every day. Several of my Internet friends eat like this all year round, and indeed the frequency of colds is reduced a lot when the seasons change. The other school is "supplement after precise testing". Supporters believe that blind supplementation may cause excessive nutrients. It is best to do a serum nutrient screening once a year. It makes sense to supplement whatever is missing. Last year, I was found to be vitamin D deficient in my physical examination. The doctor asked me to take a daily supplement of 800IU. If I blindly bought the high-dose model with 5000IU per pill, I might have problems with supplementation. No matter where you stand, there is a bottom line to keep: the intake of any supplement cannot exceed the "Tolerable Maximum Intake (UL)" stipulated by the Chinese Nutrition Society. For example, vitamin C for adults cannot exceed 2,000 mg per day. Taking too much can easily lead to urinary tract stones. This is not controversial.

I used to believe the saying that "supplements are best absorbed if taken in the morning" and set an alarm clock to take them every morning. Later, after asking a friend who is a nutritionist, I found out that except for a few special supplements that need to be taken at a fixed time, the absorption effect of most supplements has little to do with the time of day. If you insist on taking them every day, it will be better than anything else. Many people are confused about whether to take supplements before or after meals. In fact, there is no need to memorize the form at all. You can just take fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, K, fish oil, lutein, and coenzyme Q10 with your meals. The fat in your meals can help dissolve nutrients, making them much more efficiently absorbed. I didn't pay attention when I took lutein before. I took it on an empty stomach for a week. Sometimes I could see a faint yellow color when I went to the toilet. Later I changed it to taking it with lunch, and this never happened again. As for water-soluble vitamins C and B, you can take them at any time. The only thing to note is that some people will experience acid reflux and nausea if they take B vitamins on an empty stomach, so they should be eaten after meals. They are very flexible and there is no need to be so stuck.

Interestingly, there have been different opinions in the academic circles regarding whether supplements can be taken together. For example, calcium supplementation should be combined with vitamin D3 to promote absorption. This is a general consensus. However, it has been widely circulated before that "calcium and iron cannot be taken together". In recent years, many studies have put forward different opinions: if it is a daily supplementary dose of calcium and iron, taking it together will not affect the absorption at all. Only when a single supplementary dose exceeds 5 times the recommended amount, it needs to be taken at a staggered time. Ordinary consumers don’t actually have to worry so much. If you buy a compound supplement from a regular manufacturer, the formula will have already adjusted the dosage for you, so you can just take it without worry.

Of course, if you belong to special groups such as pregnant women, the elderly, and patients with chronic diseases, don’t do blind research on your own. It’s safest to ask your doctor. My cousin bought ordinary folic acid before she got pregnant. Later, when she was filing, it was found that the MTHFR gene had a mutation and ordinary folic acid could not be metabolized. The doctor specially asked her to switch to active folic acid. If she kept eating it by herself, it might affect the development of the baby.

After all, the core of supplements is the word "supplement". To put it bluntly, it is the gap that your daily diet misses, and it helps you fill it. If you can eat whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, and high-quality protein every meal, sleep 7 hours a day, and exercise enough, you don't actually need to take any supplements. If you really want to take it, don’t think of it as a magical elixir, just think of it as a small patch to check for dietary deficiencies, right?