Do Supplements Really Work?

My opinion on supplements as a Doctor of Clinical Nutrition. Should you be taking supplements? Or are they a scam?

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Supplements: They’ve become a controversial topic in today’s polarized health environment.

And yet, they’ve also become impossible to avoid in the current market. You’re probably seeing advertisements for several supplements per day— each suggesting that they’re the solution to all of your problems.

I get questions every single day about different supplements. Even as someone immersed in this topic, I still hear of ‘new’ supplements, combinations, herbs, and cutting edge ingredient weekly.

If you’re finding it hard to keep up, please know that even an expert in this topic can’t keep up! One day it’s collagen. The next its colostrum. Then creatine. Protein? Are you taking Shilajit? Magnesium? CBD? This probiotic. No that probiotic. No wait a PREbiotic. Or a synbiotic? Definitely a postbiotic.

This is partially by design.

If you don’t really know what you need, and hear about the next new hot supplement, you’re more likely to keep trying new things and to keep opening your wallet any time you hear of the next ‘cure’ to your problems.

And if you’ve tried any of them, you have probably realized that they sound too good to be true. You end up frustrated. They’re not working, or could they actually be making things worse?

Supplements can be life-changing, mood-changing, metabolism-firing, energy-promoting, hormone-helping, and digestive-healing.

It’s all about taking the right ones (and not being swayed by the newest influencer promotion). And it’s all about getting some support from a qualified professional.

As someone who has studied the use of supplements for over 10 years, I can share that I have seen supplements have tremendous influence on health when chosen specifically to support one’s individual need.

In general, when I create supplement programs to offer to my online communities, I am very selective about which ingredients and quantities are safe and effective and with minimal cause for concern for contraindications with medications or health conditions.

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But, not every supplement is right for every person.

Nothing irritates me more than a random influencer selling supplements on their social media platform, talking about how a specific supplement helped to solve their problems.

Supplements are a very individualized topic. And I am a huge fan of identifying gaps in a persons needs before just throwing any random thing at them.

That’s why you don’t often see me promoting many specific supplement brands, and the ones I do are highly vetted.

What Nicki on instagram is taking might be helping her specific body’s needs or goals. Or, she could just be getting paid enough to promote it. She’s probably getting a kickback every time you use her promo code.

This contributes to the misinformation and misunderstanding about supplements.

Nicki is probably just some gal who heard that a supplement would help her hair grow longer or help her feel less bloated, and since she has 100k followers she is somehow seen as an expert on the subject.

We chalk it up to being scammy, or we become jaded by having tried many different things and feeling no difference.

There are literally thousands of supplements on the market today. My goal is to help you better understand a few of them, but also to know how to ask the right questions so that you can get products that have an impact (and don’t just give you expensive urine 🙃).

So, I want to dive deeper into some of the safer supplements to take, and those that you may need an opinion from a health professional before taking.