You may have been seen several ads for herbal and dietary health supplements on your social media feeds. These ads or commercials come in many forms. While some are sponsored on social media, others are promoted by influencers, friends, or marketers, suggesting how effectively these supplements can help you to live a healthy life.
This is because there is a huge market and growing demand for herbal and dietary supplement products. Research shows that the global dietary supplement market is worth over $136.2 billion. In view of this, it’s not surprising that advertisers, influencers, friends, and even family members are recommending various forms of herbal and dietary supplements to you based on your health needs.
There are several forms of herbal and dietary supplements. They come in pills, powder, and liquid but their objectives are the same, to boost your immune system towards the well-being of the body, according to Jeffrey Milstein, MD at Penn Medicine.
We have been made to believe that health supplements can boost our systems. As a result, “from vitamin A to Zinc, many people including Americans have been taking dietary supplements for decades,” according to Penn Medicine. According to National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health[NIH], dietary supplements provide health benefits to the human body.
For example, there are health benefits to taking melatonin for jet lag. The same report reveals that most of these supplements are promoted mainly for weight loss, sexual enhancement, and bodybuilding purposes.
In addition, another study posits that health supplements including but not limited to, vitamin B12, vitamin D, folic acid, calcium, zinc, and fish oil are capable of improving your overall well-being.
Despite the benefits to the human body, scientists still cast doubts about the health benefits of herbal and dietary supplements.
Research shows that taking herbal and dietary supplements especially multivitamins doesn’t prolong your life or prevent you from getting cancer and diabetes but rather causes harm to the body.
Studies conducted in Australia between 2009 and 2020 reports negative benefits for taking herbal and dietary supplements. The study involved one hundred and eighty-four adults. All of them had drug-induced liver injuries. Herbal and dietary supplements were responsible for 47 percent of these cases, WION. Some patients had to get liver transplants because of these health supplements.
In 2015, the New England Journal of Medicine also reports that supplement-related emergencies were on the rise. According to the report, an average of 23,000 cases was recorded yearly[WION].
The US Federal Trade Commission[FTC], the body which is responsible for regulating advertisement stipulates that advertisers and influencers should be candid and not misleading about the health benefits of dietary supplements.
“Are they truthful about the health benefits of health supplements? Can these supplements really boost our immune system and protect our bodies from bacteria and viruses?” According to Dr. Milstein, supplements can pose serious health implications to patients who have underlining health conditions.
How do we stay healthy then? It’s crucial to note that we can stay healthy by cooking most of the food we eat. Cooking a meal allows you to select what goes into your body, most importantly provide what your body lacks. This will help you to infuse organic nutrients that are capable of producing anti-bodies to boost your immune system.
In addition, one can actually stay healthy without necessarily taking herbal and dietary supplements. Research also shows that we can get most of these vitamins if we eat natural vegetables including but not limited to citrus fruits, red bell peppers, broccoli, garlic, ginger, spinach, and almond in your food. If we can stay healthy by eating natural food or vegetables why then do we have to buy or take in herbal and dietary supplements that have not been fully approved by medical doctors for our daily consumption?
The question is: are you currently taking any herbal and dietary supplements? Will you now or in the future take herbal and dietary supplements as a way to improve your health? Or are you planning to buy some anytime soon?
Well, the current body of empirical evidence suggests that herbal and dietary supplements to a larger extent are not healthy for the human body.
This article has revealed a lot about the dangers of using dietary supplements and I give you a thumbs up for that. Many a man would purchase these products without doing a little research about the side effects that come along with its ingestion in the long run. Mostly, the internet is awash with lots of advertisements of these and many other products that promise to increase one immunity but they are always not true. Eating natural fruits and vegetables is the way to go.
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