Dietary Supplements: Healthy or Not? The Most Important Points at a Glance

• People who eat a healthy, balanced diet generally get enough vitamins and minerals.
• Many people believe that it is not necessary to take dietary supplements in this case. Often, that is true.
• However, there are times when taking dietary supplements can be both sensible and healthy.
• Read this article to find out when that's the case—and when supplements can be counterproductive.

Dietary fiber, essential fatty acids, minerals, vitamins: People who eat a balanced diet generally have no trouble providing their bodies with the nutrients they need on a nearly daily basis. And if you feel like you’re not getting enough, you still have the option of taking dietary supplements. But this raises the question: Is that healthy or not?

Dietary supplements: Should you take them or not?

To support your diet, dietary supplements —in the right dosage and containing the right nutrients—can certainly be beneficial. This is especially true if you belong to a high-risk group and, for example, are unable to get enough minerals, vitamins, trace elements, or dietary fiber from your regular diet. Even if you have an illness, you may still be lacking certain nutrients.

So if you do have a deficiency, taking dietary supplements is a good idea and is often even necessary. This is especially true if you aren’t getting enough calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, and iron.

Dietary supplements: often unnecessary, but not harmful either

People who eat fruits and vegetables every day—a total of five servings is recommended—generally get enough vitamins and trace minerals. If you take additional vitamin supplements, they’re unnecessary, but they won’t harm your body either. However, how the body absorbs vitamins and minerals is another matter entirely: iron, for example, is absorbed more effectively when taken along with vitamin C. This is more likely to happen with natural foods than with pills and the like.

There are dietary supplements that claim to significantly boost performance and concentration. However, these are precisely the supplements you should be cautious about—especially if, for example, you are also taking medication.

In some cases, dietary supplements have the opposite effect

It is widely believed that it is impossible to overdose on vitamins. However, that is not entirely true. Sure, you can generally never consume vitamin C in quantities large enough to cause harm to the body.

But there are actually nutrients that you can consume in excess. This is the case with iodine, for example. If you consistently consume more than half a gram of iodine per day, it can damage the thyroid gland (which may lead to hypothyroidism) and negatively affect testosterone production.

Even vitamin D, often called the “sunshine” vitamin, can be harmful if taken in excess. A direct consequence is often a significantly elevated calcium level, known as hypercalcemia. In many cases, this leads not only to abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting, and a persistent loss of appetite, but also often to severe kidney damage and cardiac arrhythmias. There are also known cases where this overdose has resulted in loss of consciousness and even death. But to be clear one last time: In most cases, you can take dietary supplements without any concerns—available in the Kanela Online Shop.