The honest self-care

The first dietary supplement was probably vitamin C – it showed up for sell as a pure substance around 90 years ago. Since then, a lot has changed in the industry.

The market for nutritional supplements is growing steadily, as is demand.Therefore, I would like to show you in this article whether nutritional supplements are worth it.

I would recommend you to read the whole article and not only individual sections, because it is hardly possible to separate the individual contents from each other – they only make sense together.

Please note that this article may contain unpaid advertising.

1. What are dietry supplements?
2. Law of the minimum
3. Plants also look better with fertilizer
4. Vitamins can’t be stored
5. Aging

1.What are dietary supplements?

Supplements are no medicinal product by law, as they are not intended to specifically cure diseases.

However, if you have a lack of certain minerals or vitamins this may cause a metabolic dysfuction and consequently you do not feel good.

Malnutrition also leads to getting sick more easily, as the immune system does not work as it should.

Dietary supplements contain vitamins, mineral salts, amino acids and fatty acids in increased concentration.

Since you normally take these substances with your food anyway, they should only be taken as a supplement, as the name suggests.

2. The law of minimum

I guess that your are told regularly that a healthy person with a healthy and balanced diet does not need any supplements.

That is correct.

Because a healthy person will absorb all given necessary vitamins, minerals, etc. from food.

We are assuming at this point that you are offering your body 150% of all the nutrients it wants, so we can be sure it absorbs 100% what it needs.

An additional intake of supplements then makes no sense since the body can not absorb more, the 100% is completed. Therefore, dietary supplements are a waste of money, because they are not absorbed by the body and end up in your waste water.

However, for the above statement to be correct, two conditions must be met.

1. The person must be 100% healthy and therefore able to absorb and utilize the nutrients provided.
2. there must always be exactly the right amount of each nutrient available to be absorbed.

Can you guarantee that these points are met?

Let’s take a closer look at point one:

If you have stress at work or personal life, if you don’t get enough exercise, if you drink alcohol even once in a while, if you indulge in fast food once in a while, if you don’t sleep enough, if you have to take medication,if your DNA is responsible for a less well-functioning body, if even one of these mentioned points is true, then you are not functioning at 100%.

So even if you take great care of your diet, your body may not be able to absorb the nutrients provided as it should.

Point two:

Just one missing substance is enough to disrupt your metabolism.

No matter how healthy you eat, no matter how many other supplements you take, that one missing substance limits your body’s overall function.

This is called the law of minimum (Yey, I know, actually, the law refers to plants but it can be transferred to us humans.)

It may be because you need this one substance to absorb other substances together with it. For example, vitamin C is needed for absorbing iron. -> If vitamin C is missing from the diet, very little iron is absorbed.

Or it may be because this substance is responsible for other metabolic processes in the body that cannot take place without it.

So get sure that if you take any supplements, it is the ones that you actually need.

If you eat a lot of fruit anyway, it makes no sense to use vitamin C as a dietary supplement.

Because you have enough of it. It does not bring you any added value. You need to concentrate on substances you have too little of. And these are the ones you should take.

3. Plants look better with fertilizer

You don’t need to fertilize your plant. Your plant will grow and bloom without fertilizer. Then why do you do it?

Because your plant will look better.

It will be greener, stronger and bloom more. The same is true for your body.

You need to keep in mind the law of minimum (see above). It is not useful to „fertilize“ your body with substances of which it has enough.

You need to to find out what your minimum is. It is best to have a detailed blood test done for this.

With some substances, you can be almost sure that your body has a deficiency. An example of this is vitamin D and vitamin B12.

4. Vitamins can’t be stored

For some substances, your body has a storage capacity.

Vitmain D, for example, can be stored.

So if your body gets more vitamin D on day one and no vitamin D day two, that’s okay. It can use its vitamin D storage on the second day.

You can refill your vitamin D storage with high-dose supplements (or a summer vacation), which takes about 1 to 2 weeks. And then your body can use the vitamin D vor several weeks.

Vitamin C, on the other hand, cannot be stored by the body. Therefore, you need to supply your body with vitamin C every day.

5. Aging

The older we get, the more difficult it becomes for our bodies to absorb certain substances.

Example: The older we get, the more difficult it is for the intestines to absorb calcium.

Therefore, many people (especially women) suffer from calcium deficiency in old age. The body the tries to compensate this issue and uses bone material to complete the missing amount of calcium.

The bones become weak and hurt.

Therewith you need to eat more calcium in your 50s that you have to in your 30s.

Since it can be difficult to meet the high demand by food, it really makes sense to use dietary supplements at this age.