Month: September 2024

It’s vital to understand that nothing in the entire world can replace a highly nutritious way of eating. Supplements are designed to supplement – not replace – a nourishing diet. But it is becoming increasingly challenging to get all the nutrients we need to avoid insufficiency or deficiency and so I am also a fan of supplementation. 

Not all supplements are created equally and I want to make sure you’re not just wasting your money on shelf help that doesn’t benefit you in the ways you expect or need. Here are some essential tips to guide you in choosing the right supplements to enhance your health and fill in any nutritional gaps effectively. 

1. Understand the bioavailability 

The bioavailability of a supplement determines how much of what you ingest is actually utilised by the body. Some nutrients are enhanced when taken with others (like vitamin C enhancing iron absorption) or may require specific forms for better bioavailability (such as magnesium in citrate form versus oxide). This is a good reason to opt for supplements that are made from real food and/or herbs as the nutrients are in a form that the body knows exactly what to do with. 

2. Prioritise high quality and/or practitioner only products

Practitioner-only brands have typically been formulated by people who understand nutrition, rather than marketers. They tend to offer formulations with more potent dosages of nutrients, too. That’s not to say you have to exclusively stick to practitioner only products, but consider the quality and potency of the products you purchase. Low cost supplements are often filled with cheap excipients (additives that make the handling of the manufacturing process easier) or other inactive ingredients that can diminish the overall effectiveness of the supplement or even trigger allergic reactions. 

3. Consider your specific needs

Consider your specific needs when selecting supplements, as they are not one-size-fits-all. Take into account your diet, lifestyle, and any specific health concerns you might have. For example, if you avoid certain food groups due to allergies or preferences, you may need targeted supplementation to compensate for missing nutrients. Additionally, different life stages or circumstances, such as pregnancy, breastfeeding, or periods of intense stress, can increase your body’s need for certain nutrients. By understanding your dietary intake and the demands of your lifestyle, you can make informed decisions about which supplements are most suitable for you, ensuring your body receives the support it needs. A consultation with a qualified nutrition-focussed professional can also be valuable. Jenny Brooks is the senior consultant at the Dr Libby Clinic – you can read more about her here (LINK)

4. Simplicity is often key 

A long list of ingredients doesn’t necessarily translate to better health benefits. Instead, look for products with fewer but more impactful ingredients that provide a concentrated dose of specific nutrients. This is particularly true for greens powders and/or multivitamins that may claim to offer comprehensive health benefits. Simplified formulations ensure that each ingredient is provided in a decent amount and serves a purpose, which not only tends to enhance the absorption of essential nutrients but also supports a more streamlined, effective supplementation routine.

5. Be mindful of inactive ingredients

Many products include additional ingredients to enhance shelf life, taste, appearance, or manufacturability. However, these can sometimes reduce the quality of the supplement, cause undesirable side effects, or negatively impact your biochemistry. Always scrutinise the ingredient list for unnecessary additives and opt for supplements that focus on purity and essential ingredients that support your nourishment.

There are many reasons I am a fan of nutritional supplementation — although not all supplements are created equally. In other words, they don’t all impact the body in the same the way. The quality and the source of the nutrients, as well as what else they are paired and packaged with, all play a role in their bioavailability (usability) for your body.

Here are a few reasons why I like good-quality nutritional supplementation:

1.      Nutrient-rich soil is rare: The loss of ground cover and top soil, desertification, along with some conventional farming practices, deplete the soil of essential nutrients. If these nutrients aren’t in the soil, they won’t be in our food either. This means even the most nourishing way of eating can sadly lack vital vitamins and minerals these days.

2.      Increased pollutant exposure: Today’s environment exposes us to more pollutants than ever through the air we breathe, what we eat and drink, as well as via the cleaning and personal care products we use. These pollutants increase our body’s nutrient demands to support detoxification pathways, in an attempt to help reduce their harmful impacts.

3.      Stress and free radicals: Our fast-paced lives often keep stress hormones like cortisol at high levels, affecting everything from our breathing to how rapidly we metabolise oxygen. This leads to the production of free radicals – molecules that, if in excess, can damage cells and contribute to premature ageing and the development of chronic diseases. Antioxidants from our way of eating are crucial in neutralising these molecules and we need an abundance of them to counter the effects of circulating stress hormones. Yet here is another big change that has occurred in the recent past: the antioxidant levels in our foods have dropped dramatically. Why? Well, while plants have the ability to protect themselves from pests by making certain substances within themselves. Yet if the plant is sprayed to protect it from pests, it doesn’t have to produce these innate protective substances. It has no need. And many of these substances that would naturally protect the plant – but that are now not being made by the plant, due to spraying – are antioxidants to humans when we consume them. Hence their decreased availability to us.

I am also a fan of getting as much nutrition as possible from our food, including plenty of vegetables. They are superstars when it comes to what they are able to do for us. Consider the Brassica genus of vegetables, for example. They contain not only vitamins, minerals and fibre, but also substances unique to this botanical family – substances known as indoles and glucoraphanin, which is converted into the ultra-superstar sulphoraphane. These substances support the optimal functioning of some of our most important biochemical pathways: those of the liver, and particularly those needed for estrogen and pesticide detoxification. 

Then there is beetroot. This stunningly-coloured plant contains many nutritious substances, including nitrates which convert to nitric oxide. This can help regulate blood pressure and provide better oxygen delivery to the tissues – again, essential for great energy, a clear mind and disease prevention.

Blackcurrants (with their seeds in), grapes (with their seeds in) and berries are also superstars with their oligomeric proanthocyanidins (OPCs), which are a set of bioflavonoid complexes that act as free radical scavengers inside us. Many names refer to this set of bioflavonoids, including leuco-anthocyanin, anthocyanidin and many more. Think of OPCs as being nutrients with super-powers: they support virtually every metabolic system in the body. Research has shown that decent intakes of OPCs help protect against cardiovascular and other degenerative diseases, and have numerous other benefits, including lowering LDL cholesterol levels in the blood, reducing platelet aggregation (you don’t want your blood to be too sticky for so many reasons), increasing the strength and elasticity of blood vessels, helping collagen repair itself,

reducing fluid retention and inflammation, relieving functional problems associated with varicose veins, lessening the tendency toward diabetic retinopathy, and improving skin health. 

All of that from Nature.

This shows the power inherent in our food. Yet remember that the nutrient density in our food is predominantly reliant on soil health. And the usability of nutrients by the body can also be impacted on, based on their source. 

For example, did you know that most nutritional supplements are synthetic, and are made in a laboratory? Arguably, vitamin C is vitamin C no matter what. Certainly, vitamin C is ascorbic acid, and ascorbic acid can be created in a laboratory or by Nature in, for example, an orange or a lemon. Both sources behave as vitamin C in the body. Yet studies have been undertaken to examine the effectiveness of a number of nutrients based on their source – synthetically produced or as nutrients from food – and the vitamin C from food wins. 

It seems, then, that there are compounds unique to food that make nutrients highly bioavailable. So, in a world where soil is depleted and our nutritional needs are greater than ever before, I have seen great health be obtained and maintained through eating nutritiously, and supplementing this with additional nutrients and herbs from wholefood, real-food and botanical sources. 

Could the way you eat do with a nutritional boost? 

How are you going to do this?