17. Dietary Supplements
Throughout this book I have emphasized the need to eat real food
and avoid processed, synthetic and artificial products. The same
holds true when it comes to dietary supplements. However, the most
important focus on nutrients should be the diet, not supplements.
Always try to obtain all your nutrients from healthy, real-food. When
there is a need for supplements, because of an increased nutritional
need or the inability to obtain certain nutrients in adequate amounts
from a healthy diet, supplementing with products made from real
foods is the next most effective approach.
There are several distinctions you need to make before deciding
to supplement your diet. The first is whether you actually need a sup-
plement. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways. The first is
with the help of a health-care professional who may determine this
through a variety of ways; from a good history, blood and urine tests
and other evaluations. However, with some exceptions, blood and
urine tests generally are not the best ways to determine nutritional
needs — although they can uncover serious deficiencies. Other ways
to determine your potential needs for supplementation include exper-
imentation, diet analysis, and symptom surveys. These options are
discussed below.
Some people may effectively determine the need for a dietary
supplement through careful experimentation. Even a doctor, who
may determine the need for a particular nutrient, is experimenting by
giving or recommending a certain nutrient. Whether from a health-
care professional or done by yourself, the best determination that you
need a particular nutrient is that it makes something better; this may
include the successful treatment of a particular problem or the elimi-
nation of an abnormal finding in a blood test or other evaluation. In