Nutrition myths debunked - High dose supplements are best

Why do we think more is always better?

There is often this attitude in nutrition and supplementations that high dose are always best. I feel like we don't really have this attitude in other areas of health - such as medications or even portions of food or actually a lot of things in life!

We know that more is not always best. But for some reason when it comes to nutrition and supplements, but people still often assume that they ought to have the highest dose possible and ‘more is best.’

What important questions should we consider?

Important consideration do vary a little depending on what nutrient or herb we're talking about. But there are some common themes, some common takeaway points that I hope will be helpful to you all.

1 - Are you deficient

So, my first question I often ask, or I consider, or we can get tests to help confirm it, is, are you deficient? So, when we are thinking about particular nutrients, this is more for the nutrient side of things. And I like to use vitamin D as a nice example for a lot of reasons.

So, for vitamin D, are, you likely to be deficient? Why are you wanting to take more? Now here in the UK, Scotland especially, most people are deficient. Now you can get a, test from the doctor if you want to help confirm this.

But, unless you're very good at taking a vitamin D supplement, if you're relying on the sunshine here and food sources, then be most likely to be deficient. So vitamin D is one that I can safely say most people would benefit from, from a sensible dose supplement. But it is a lovely example of a nutrient that you do need a sensible dose.

But, back to the deficiency benefits. Research does help confirm that if you're deficient, you will get more of a benefit. (1) So, basically we don't want to take things unnecessarily and as I say, certain nutrients you could get away with a little bit extra. But vitamin D, we don't need to take too much.

2 - How is it stored in the body?

So, this is something you should be considering with medications or supplements alike. Vitamin D is a lovely example again, because it's fat soluble. This means we store it, we store it in the liver, we can store it in our adipose tissue and, we don't want to store too much.

Stores are there to be utilised if we need it, but we do not need massive excess stores and, and it can, in excess, be detrimental. Your liver can be put under pressure if it's attempting to store too much. I'm using vitamin D as an example. Iron is another example.

People perhaps assume iron gives me energy. But too much is problematic - we don't need it. And your body, struggles to store it and it has to put the efforts into storing it. So it can be detrimental, especially certain nutrients, vitamin D or iron (haemochomatosis) having too much, your body needs to store it.

3 - How is it processed?

How does your body see that nutrient, process it and make it useful? Does it become bioavailable? So vitamin D, just using this as a helpful example again. See, we need magnesium, sufficient magnesium, to make vitamin D active and meaning that we can make use of it.

And again you also physiologically, holistically (considering the body as a whole) rely on other organs such as your liver, your kidneys to make these kind of conversions into the right form, in the case of vitamin D. So, this is something to consider as well that just your liver is always quite active and should be considered depending on what we're putting in our bodies.

But the vitamin D and magnesium one is interesting because from my experience magnesium is quite often forgotten about and so people will happily take super high doses of vitamin D, but they don't take the magnesium that we need to get into the right places and to process it properly.

And this can throw other nutrients in the body off, such as calcium. It can affect calcium balance in the wrong ways. So this is definitely one to consider and why an all-round multivitamin can be quite helpful in some respects - because it tends to have the nutrients in a nicer balance kind of replicating food, so more of a whole-food, or a whole -plant balance.

4 - Is it natural?

Within different nutrients we often get synthetic forms too. Vitamin C is a nice example of this.

You can get ascorbic acid which is synthetic, it's made in a lab. Does your body recognise and process that as well as a lovely whole food form? Vitamin C is quite often taken from fruits - acerola cherry is a lovely source of vitamin C and in that way it can be in a nice whole food, natural form supplement that your body is more likely to recognise and make better use of.

Wherever possible start with your foods and your natural sources. But if you do want to supplement, try and get a more natural form whole food supplement if you like. Then when it comes to herbs, this rule applies to both herbs and nutrients. So with herbs you can also get whole herb blends.

A.Vogel, as a company, traditionally, since the principles set by Alfred Vogel himself, have always done this particualrly well - taking the whole herb and the whole plant as much as possible. Because Alfred knew it worked and got the results him and his clients wanted! And research has since backed this idea, that the beneficial effects are often more apparent in a whole plant extract, rather than when just isolating one sole element.

Also, this is why A.Vogel doesn't tend to do super high doses. Research has helped us understand that beyond a certain point, the benefit is no more, by taking more. And this is down to those bodily processes - homeostasis - your body is always trying to achieve balance. Your body recognises what is natural. When something becomes unnatural, your body is thinking, no thank you, I don't need that much, I don't want that much, I'm going to get rid!

So, the half life of these nutrients would change (vitamin D as another prime example in the literature). Your body tends to metabolise things quicker and you may not get the benefit, if you take too much at once. And there's research on that and the vitamin D as well. How your body, if you put in a super high dose, your body just uses it up quicker and wants to get rid of it really, because it's not natural and it's not something your body would traditionally have benefited from. (2) Think natural, and don't go to extremes, and you'll be all right!