Do Supplements Really Offer Health Benefits?

That's a question that many people are now asking. Statistics show that more than half of the general adult population in the United States takes at least one supplement. Whether it's a vitamin C supplement, iron, fish oil, etc., we love taking supplements. In fact, Americans spend more than $30 billion on dietary supplements every year, attesting to the popularity surrounding them. However, there's new evidence suggesting that dietary supplements offer little-to-no health benefits

Back when the government passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act in the mid 1990s, it allowed companies to market supplements without submitting proof of their products' effectiveness and safety to the Food and and Drug Administration (FDA). As you can expect, this allowed for an influx of new dietary supplements to hit the shelves, which in turn resulted in a huge increase of sales.

But a new study published in the journal JAMA takes aim at the dietary supplement market and the effectiveness of its products. Led by epidemiologist Elizabeth Kantor of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the study found that 52% of adults used at least one supplement in 2012. That's not necessarily surprising given that other studies have found similar usage statistics among adults in the U.S. What is surprising, however, is that usage did not appear to increase in relation to marketing and promotional tactics.

More recently, a separate study was conducted on the supplement market, with researchers concluding that they offer little, if any, benefit. This study found that usage of multivitamin and mineral supplements had declined from 37% down to 31%. Usage of vitamin C, vitamin E and selenium supplements had also decreased.

Why are supplements ineffective, and why are people taking them less frequently now than in the past? Not all supplements are ineffective, but one of the problems faced by this market is authenticity. Just because a supplement product is labeled as being "fish oil" doesn't necessarily mean that it is. Many companies mislabel their products in an effort to save money and improve their profits. Unbeknownst to the consumer, he or she isn't getting what they paid for.

Also, supplements are a poor substitute for natural sources of vitamins and nutrients. When you take a supplement, a large portion of it passes straight through your digestive tract without ever being absorbed into the bloodstream. So if you want to reap the benefits of nutrients, consume them from natural sources like fruit and vegetables.