Dietary Supplements: What They Are and the Benefits They Provide
A brisk walk in the morning, some mindful meditation throughout the day, and a diet rich in superfoods is a great start to achieving a healthy mind and body. While you are doing everything you can to follow a healthy way of eating and life in general, occasionally there are physiological and environmental factors that influence the nutritional impact of the food you eat. This is when the benefits of dietary supplements become crucial to good overall health.
Negative Effects on Nutritional Value
Good nutrition is not as simple as eating your fruits and vegetables, although that definitely helps. There are many factors that can influence the nutritional value of produce as well as how your body processes and utilizes it. Unfortunately, some cause negative effects including:- Poor digestion: Our on-the-run society has resulted in unhealthy foods eaten too quickly in cars, at desks, or even as we walk. When you eat too fast and do not chew your food adequately, some of the food will pass through your body without any of its nutrition being absorbed.
- Erratic eating: Hand-in-hand with the pace of life goes body image concerns, which often leads to skipping meals. This interrupts your natural metabolism, making it more difficult to absorb the necessary vitamins and minerals, as well as making you more likely to gain weight and causing difficulty when it comes to losing weight.
- Medications: About 55% of people take daily prescriptions. Some medications can deplete nutrients in the body or how the body absorbs them. Diuretics (water pills) alone can affect calcium, potassium, B-vitamins, vitamin C, and zinc.
- Hormonal changes: Young girls and women who are menstruating lose iron every month. Pregnant women can have a reduced level of folic acid, and women going through menopause may need a dietary supplement that includes calcium.
- Food preservation: Eating seasonally and preserving foods to eat in the off-season is a great way to eat locally and know where your food is coming from, but preserving your foods slightly lowers their nutritional value as you prepare them.
- Farming techniques: As the global population grows, so does the demand for food, regardless of seasonality. These practices are resulting in depleted soil, which in turn produces fruits and vegetables that are lower in vital nutrients.
- Constant detox: Even just the land, air, and water around us are lessening our ability to adequately absorb nutrients, as we continually use antioxidants to fight the free radicals coming from toxic sources.
The Benefits of Dietary Supplements
Fortunately, there are dietary supplements that can help us fill in our nutritional gaps. Some excellent benefits of dietary supplements include:- Meeting all nutritional needs without overeating
- The ability to enhance specific vitamins, minerals, amino or fatty acids lacking in your diet
- A quick and easy way to get the nutrition you need
Use Multivitamins or Blends
For many people, a daily multivitamin will help keep them on a healthy nutritional track. Dietary supplement blends like Omega-7 Support harness the power of the sea buckthorn berry superfruit in order to provide a daily dose that can:- Help lower bad cholesterol
- Help raise good cholesterol
- Maintain moisture levels and healthy mucous membranes (dry eyes, nose, mouth, vaginal dryness)
- Aid in digestion and improve intestinal lining health
- Improve skin, hair, and nail health