Far 2 Fabulous

Sifting Through the Hype of Health Supplements

April 25, 2024 • Julie Clark & Catherine Chapman • Episode 16

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Episode 16
Ever wonder if your daily multivitamin is actually making a difference, or if you're just flushing money down the drain? We're peeling back the label on that bottle of supplements to reveal what's really inside and how it affects your health. Our latest episode offers a deep dive into the critical world of dietary supplements, where we distinguish between the must-haves and the marketing hype. You'll walk away with a wealth of knowledge about everything from liposomal delivery systems to the importance of the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA), and the stark differences between synthetic and food-grown supplements. Plus, we shed light on how certain agricultural practices have left our soil nutrient-depleted, making that bottle on your shelf more essential than ever.

Navigating the supplement aisle can be as complex as translating a foreign language, but we're here to interpret. Our discussion extends beyond mere recommendations and into the realm of personalized health, exploring the intricate balance between omega fatty acids, the significance of gut health, and the potential interactions between your favorite herbal remedy and prescription medications. We break down the nuances of supplement quality and dosing, ensuring you can make informed choices that align with your specific health needs. By the end of our chat, you'll have the tools to not only choose the right supplements but to understand how they work synergistically with a well-balanced diet to keep you at your peak.

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For more information about Julie Clark Nutrition, click HERE
For more information about Catherine Chapman, click HERE

We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Far Too Fabulous hosted by Julie and Catherine, Join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistiness, inspiration, candy chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered wellbeing.

Speaker 2:

Let's dive in. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. Now I'm on my own today because I'm talking to you about supplements. Do you need supplements? What supplements should you buy? What even are they? So let's dive in. So what are supplements?

Speaker 2:

Well, they're basically vitamins, minerals, herbs or other botanicals, amino acids, that's, your proteins, enzymes, and we get different forms for supplements. So we get things that are sometimes called transdermal. That means that the vitamin or the mineral gets straight through the skin. Liposomal is a form of nutrient that gets straight into the center of the cell. So you've got these different forms. As you know, they can come in powders, in liquids, in capsules, in gels. They can be chewable. There's lots of different forms of these supplements. So do we actually need supplements? So the vitamins and minerals and all the other things I've just said most of them are, or the ones that we tend to supplement with will be needed in the body for many, many different processes.

Speaker 2:

In an ideal world, we would like to get all of our nutrients from our food, but we've got a few issues with that at the moment. So when I was studying, doing my degree, we had a look at a soil report which compared the nutrients in the soil from 1950 to 1985, I think it was and we had a look at the impact of using the farming methods, the chemicals that get used and how that displaces certain nutrients. And what was quite shocking is that at the time when we were looking at this, we would need to have eaten, for example, four carrots, compared to one in 1950, to access the same level of nutrients. Now we can't just all go around eating four times the amount of food, but it is quite shocking when you look at soil reports to see how much the nutrients have decreased, and we're talking essential nutrients like magnesium and selenium and chromium massive, massive drop in the availability of those nutrients. And, of course, we get those nutrients through the food that we eat. So it really does then matter how our food is produced and the farming methods that are used and the soil that that food is grown in that are used, and the soil that that food is grown in. So I think that, given the current situation with regards to how most of our food is shipped and stored and produced, and then the cooking methods that we use, coupled with the demands on our bodies due to environmental toxins, medications and our lifestyle, such as stress.

Speaker 2:

I think the case for supplementation is is huge, and so I do recommend using supplements for well, just to support your health and for optimal health. We can also use supplements if we, for example, know that someone's had a test and the result shows that they're low in a certain a nutrient. For example, you could have a test and find that you're low in iron, so you take an iron supplement to correct that. There may be medical conditions that you have that mean that your body needs help with a certain nutrient, or we might know that genetically you're compromised in a pathway that needs more of that nutrient. So really we're looking at supporting our good, healthy diet with supplements to give us that optimal health. We don't want to just get by and we don't want to be running at just enough. We want to make sure that we've got an abundance of nutrients and we're nutrient rich. And that's not to say that we would want to overdose on certain vitamins and minerals, especially the ones that are fat soluble, like vitamin A, for example. So we do need to be careful. But generally speaking, as a health health insurance, I will do some recommendations at the end, but we want to help our bodies with the nutrients we need, because we know that the soil is depleted and we know that the way our food is produced and the demands we have on our body means that we're asking a lot of ourselves. But I always want to say that we can't use supplementation as a substitute for a poor diet. I do use supplementation with children that are on a limited diet due to allergies or because they're really really fussy, but for the most part, we would never want to use supplements as a substitute for a poor diet.

Speaker 2:

So what are the uses for supplements? So we might want to supply a specific nutrient or nutrients if we know that the body is struggling with something. So, for example, if we know that there's digestive issues and we want to help our body to absorb vitamin b12 that's, there's a very specific gut connection there then we may supply that vitamin in order to bypass the digestive system. We may want to correct deficiencies, because we've checked and we've run tests and we've had a look to see what our levels are. This is where I find the hair test is really really good and some of the other tests I went through. But if you know what your body is, what your body has in terms of its nutrients, then you can correct deficiencies and you can help rebalance things in your body has in terms of its nutrients, then you can correct deficiencies and you can help rebalance things in your body. We might want to support a system or process in the body, so we might want to support, for example, our heart health or our bones, or we may want to support the breakdown of food through the digestive system, so we might use targeted supplements to help a system or a process in the body. We may use it for therapeutic reasons. So if you've got something going on with your health and we want to really target something specifically, then we may use a therapeutic dose of supplements in the short term in order to get things back in balance in your body or get things moving, or whatever is needed at the time. We can use supplements for optimal health, because this leads nicely onto the RDA.

Speaker 2:

So what does the RDA mean? It's the Recommended Daily Allowance, and this is an allowance set by the government. That is the amount of nutrient you need, set by the government. That is the amount of nutrient you need. The amount of that nutrient you need to avoid a symptom that is caused by deficiency. So, for example, there may be an RDA for vitamin D that will prevent rickets. That doesn't mean that that's optimal amount that your body needs in vitamin D. Vitamin C is always a good one, because in the UK our vitamin C RDA is set at 60 milligrams, but we know that that is just enough to avoid scurvy. Vitamin C is a really important nutrient and we know that when we're looking at what is an optimal level of that, we want to be looking at 1000 milligrams. So 60 versus 1000. So when you see on the supplement ingredients label or the label where it's got the percentages, sometimes you may think why is it got 200% of that nutrient? It's just 200% versus the RDA. So remember the recommended daily allowance is just the amount you need to prevent a deficiency and then a known disease from that deficiency. That's all it is. It's not what you should be aiming for for optimal health. So we can use supplements to well. Supplement is the right word, isn't it To supplement a good diet, but knowing that we've got some gaps in there because of the way that we produce our food etc.

Speaker 2:

So there are some common deficiencies. So magnesium is a huge one. It's considered that 70% of the worldwide population is deficient in magnesium. Magnesium is used in every single cell of the body and it's deficient because it's one of the most vulnerable when it comes to the soil, so it gets displaced by a lot of the fertilizers and chemicals that are used, and so magnesium is a very, very common one and it's a concern because of how much magnesium is used in the body. Zinc is another one I see a very, very common one, and it's a concern because of how much magnesium is used in the body. Zinc is another one I see a lot, especially in children, and iron. So 25% of the worldwide population are considered to be iron deficient, up to 47% in young children and around 30% if the woman is pregnant or menstruating. So you know, again, these figures are quite high.

Speaker 2:

B vitamins, especially B12 and folate. One of the biggest issues with B vitamins is that they're water soluble and we use them when we're stressed and they're used in a lot of the pathways in our body and so they get depleted really, really easily and it's something that we need to keep topped up. But again, it depends on our diet and the soil. And so B vitamins I see that one a lot. Vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin 40% of people in the UK are known to be deficient in vitamin D. I just think it's one of those ones that you should test yourself for it's such a key nutrient and it's especially during the winter time we just don't have. Where we sit on the equator, we just do not have the strong enough sunlight to be able to convert vitamin D in the skin. If you live in the UK and you've got dark skin, this figure is going to be even higher than this. So then it becomes really important because vitamin D acts like a hormone in the body. It's really vital in how your body utilizes calcium and also how it regulates the immune system. So it's very, very important.

Speaker 2:

Omega-3, we've got a deficiency in omega-3 nowadays because we have an imbalance in with omega-6. So omega-6 has become dominant and there's a ratio that these two want to be in balance. Omega-3 is anti-inflammatory and omega-6 is pro-inflammatory. So you don't want to be in the favor of pro-inflammatory, you want to be anti-inflammatory. So you can be tested to check your ratio. But taking an omega-3 supplement due to deficiencies, I think, is really important. And then bacteria is the other one. So we're talking about the good bacteria. Having spent years running tests looking at people's microbiome. I know that this is a huge problem. I think it's only going to get worse. Supplementing and supporting your gut, I think, is probably one of the most important things.

Speaker 2:

How do we choose quality supplements? So you could get right into the depths of this subject, and when you do a degree in nutritional medicine, you have to know exactly the ingredients list and what you're looking for. So you'll find that you know many nutritional therapists like myself will have certain brands that they like to use, their brands that they really know well, they like their. You know their ethos. There's lots of research there. We, you know we use we tend to use companies that do not use in syntheticitives and chemicals. We avoid genetically modified and we're looking to avoid the binders and the fillers that can go into some of these supplements. So the first thing to know is you really do get what you pay for? I've seen clients switch from a Holland and Barrett supplement to a brand that I would recommend for something like for joints. They just take something like glucosamine. So glucosamine, been taking it from Holland and Barrett, still having problems with joints, swapped to a brand that is a high quality one and suddenly the joints are much better. So, yeah, you really do get what you pay for with your supplements.

Speaker 2:

There's two types of supplements. We can get food grown or synthetic. I don't like the word synthetic, but most of the supplements actually are synthetic, but what this means is that they're chemically identical to the nutrient found in the food. So, although the word sounds like we want to avoid it in many ways, I use lots and lots of synthetic supplements. These are chemically identical supplements because they can be really really useful and very affordable Food grown. In an ideal world, we would want to use food grown as much as possible, and so I tend to use a mixture, depending on someone's budget.

Speaker 2:

There's a big difference between using a nutrient, for example, vitamin C, that's synthetic but without all the additives and the form is bioavailable so it's what your body recognises versus a cheap brand where they're using a vitamin C that is probably based on calcium chalk. The body finds it really hard to absorb it. So you've just got to be careful about that kind of thing and, like I said, we want to avoid chemical additives and just looking at those labels to see what else is in this supplement, and then always check the company's ethos, because that's one of the things that I do, in that the companies that I recommend and use, I vetted so that I'm happy with how they're using their nutrients. Are they sustainable? Are they, you know, paying people correctly? All of that kind of stuff. The ethos is really important to me, as well as the research that they do so that they can back up, well as the research that they do so that they can back up their the claims that they make. So some really good companies that I use that I've recommended people like biocare and wild nutrition and opted back better. You, all of those companies are ticking all the boxes for these things so you don't have to worry about them.

Speaker 2:

So let's have a look at a label. So these are comparable supplements aimed at women of a certain age. This, well, woman 50 50 plus, and this one is for a woman 45 plus. So this is from Wild Nutrition and this is a food grown supplement. So when we have a look at the ingredients, we can see exactly that the nutrients are coming from food. There's nothing we don't recognize until we get to the additives, where it's got brown rice powder and vegetable cellulose, rice powder and vegetable cellulose. So that is the capsule and the brown rice powder stops the contents of the supplement from sticking together. So we can see exactly what that is when we look at this one.

Speaker 2:

So this is biotabiotics they're called they. They also do pregna cares and it's the one that all the women get told to take. They've got some kind of tie-in with the nhs, I swear, but anyway, for well, women. So comparable. Straight away. We're looking at some of these things. Look at this pre-gelatinized starch potatoes, bulking agents, tablet coating, titanium dioxide I don't really have that um yeah, and we can see.

Speaker 2:

Look, we've got some allergens in there anti-caking agents, skin potato starch, glucose syrup yeah, so you can see the difference between those two. So sometimes it's just a case of a bit like when you're looking at food labels, is that? If it's, you know, you've got a whole load of things there. You know some of these words you can't even pronounce. Then maybe you want to avoid that, avoid that supplement. Something to be aware of is contraindications. So some nutrients can react with medications, so always check first. So if there are certain nutrients that can impact medications that are supporting the liver, for example, so always check that insert in your medicine. Now, as nutritional therapists, we get access to an online directory where we can put in the medicines that our client is taking and we can get a list of contraindications, because it's really important not to take something that can upset the medication that you may be on. A classic one actually is. I always would recommend you take probiotics when you're on antibiotics, but because, as you can imagine, pro and anti they are opposite each other. You want to take them apart. So it's okay to take them on the same day. You don't want to take them together because the probiotic can stop the antibiotic from working as it's supposed to. So I think it's just something to be aware of, because the amount of people that will just add supplement like I've seen people bringing bags of supplements to a consultation with all the stuff they're taking and they just add on another one, add on another one without looking at the overall impact and the possible interaction with other medications. Um, with regards to recommendations, so given that we've got, we know the state of the soil, we know that our lives are very busy and demanding, we know that the food production is the way that our food is processed, means that we're less likely to have all the nutrition we need. Then my basic recommendation is to have a multivitamin and mineral and this is for adults and children an omega-3 and a probiotic. Then, of course, you want to check things like your vitamin D level. So if your multi has vitamin D in it, make sure that it's in the form of D3 and have a look at see how much. How much is in that vitamin.

Speaker 2:

When you're looking at a multi, some of the nutrients will be low because they can't get everything in there. Some nutrients are really bulky. Vitamin C is a bulky nutrient. So if we were using vitamin C to help support collagen production or to reduce histamine in the body or to support the immune system or for whatever reason, we'd probably take it separately, because we're looking to get that thousand milligrams or more in and that's going to be a big capsule. So it's not going to be enough in a multi but as a general health insurance, a multivitamin and mineral that is targeted for the stage of life that you're in.

Speaker 2:

So if you're still having your periods, then take a multi-vitamin and mineral that accounts for that. It's probably going to have a bit more iron in it, and the same for children. Make sure that you're using one that is suitable for their age. And with omega-3, there's so many different forms of omega-3. You can get liquid, you can get capsules, so it's just a case of using the type that you prefer. But omega-3 you really really want again, around about a thousand milligrams for adults, less for children. So just going back to that multivitamin and mineral once more, this is just giving you that health insurance.

Speaker 2:

If you've got other things going on that you need specific support for, then that becomes a more therapeutic plan and then I really would recommend that you see someone like me so you can get your supplements personalized to you. The person the therapist will take a full case history, know what medications you're on. They run tests so they know exactly what they're looking at and can advise you um the best. Because when you go down the route of choosing quality supplements and you're paying a bit extra, you want to make sure that the supplements you're taking are the right ones and your body's using them. You don't want expensive wee, at the end of the day a probiotic. So with probiotic you don't necessarily need to take it all the time, but given the amount of stool tests I've looked at and how low the microbiome are on the back of the COVID pandemic, I think it is wise to put it in.

Speaker 2:

Otherwise, I would say, if you're trying to budget, I would say do a course of probiotics once every quarter, especially with children. Do it at certain times of the year where you know that lots of bugs are around. So coming back to school after the summer holidays, again around Christmas time, put the probiotic in, because that will really, really help their immune systems. So those are my recommendations. But, like I said, sometimes you know there's very targeted things that are needed and then it becomes a more therapeutic approach. So I think it's better not to guess and to actually get some help with that, and because I know that supplements is a really big subject and there's so many different brands out there and it can just be really really confusing to know what to take. But please just know that if it is cheap and it's from you know, boots, holland and Barrett the supermarkets, it's likely to be poor quality.

Speaker 2:

Look at the label. Where are the nutrients coming from? What other ingredients is in that supplement? And if you see a lot of calcium mentioned, that's the cheapest form of most nutrients. It's not bioavailable to the body. Really hard for the body to get that through the digestive system. And talking of the digestive system, there are certain nutrients that struggle to get through the digestive system if the person's system is compromised. So if they've got any issues in their digestive system or they're under a lot of stress, we know that the body really struggles to absorb nutrients through the small intestines. So sometimes using things like magnesium spray on the skin transdermal get it straight in in. Sometimes a spray in the mouth it goes straight through into the bloodstream is sometimes easier. So again, something to be aware of. Huge subject. This has just been a bit of a summary.

Speaker 1:

Hope it's helped thank you for keeping us company today. If you enjoyed the podcast, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Your support helps us on our mission to reach a thousand women in our first year, so share with your friends and family. You might just change your life. Connect with us on social media and make your life easier by joining our podcast mailing list. You'll find the links in the show notes.

Speaker 2:

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