Thoughts about supplements

Not sure if anyone is interested but I thought I would share my opinion on supplements. Reading through the forums I read a few posts on some of the supplements people were taking. Primarily weight loss ones. Personally, for me when it comes to supplements I am a HUGE skeptic. I have a friend who works for a supplement company, won't say which one but it is large one, and I talk with him pretty often about some of their products. I find it pretty amazing some of the stuff he tells me.

One of the leading reasons I am skeptical about most is the use of proprietary blend formulas and misleading "success stories". Many of the supplements you are looking at contain these blends and the companies are not telling you the exact amounts of something they are putting in their product. One example could be a trial was shown to increase "A" levels when supplemented with their product. What they won't tell you is that during the trial the active ingredient mentioned was dosed much higher in the tests.

I personally research the ingredients in products before buying them, and usually still won't even buy a product unless I can find peer-reviewed clinical studies.

I guess in general, what I am trying to convey is that in my opinion diet is 80%, exercise 15%, and maybe supplements 5%. Supplements are the "icing" on the cake and unless the other two parts are really solid they are in my opinion just making your urine really expensive

This post mainly concerns the diet pills, pre-workouts, or other more extreme supplements. Please don't read this and stop taking your multi and the other ones that we all know are good.

I have several issues with supplements.

First of of all it is not always clear what component of natural food causes health benefits. Scientists try to identify these components, but it is not always clear if they work by themselves, if they work in synergy or they do not work at all and something else is the reason for the health benefits.

Second, many vitamins, minerals, etc exist in a number of isomers and forms, and though supplements in the bottle contain same combination of chemicals our bodies do not recognize them, or their bioavailability is limited (that applies to food sources to some extent too as bioavailability of many vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc depend on many factors and not all sources are created equal).

Third, your body can synthesize most of the vitamins and hormones you need if you provide enough building blocks (vitamin C being one of the most well know exceptions, as humans have a genetic mutation that prevents us from synthesizing it in our bodies). Once you supply a ready made chemical vitamin instead of letting your body build it, your body becomes lazy and switches to inferior synthetic form.

Forth, nobody knows what is really in your bottle, and when they check, the findings are often disappointing.

There was also a lot of research results recently that point to the fact that free radicals are necessary for our healthy life, and antioxidants are not that harmless.

And finally, why I do not use anything dried and powdered like protein powder. The technology (spray drying) used to produce most powders from milk to any protein powders oxidizes cholesterol and other components. Using the products including milk, which is mostly reconstituted from dry milk raises your cholesterol levels more than anything else. Yes, I probably still get some in my yogurts, but I do not add more by choice. I used to make my own yogurts from regular non reconstituted milk, but the effort is not compatible with my current work schedule.

Again, this is a very controversial topic and a multibillion industry, so I am sure there is a lot of information in support of a different opinion. That is just mine.