I kind of really don't like the supplement industry nor the people who are all over the internet, including very popular people like Joe Rogan, who keep pushing the latest thing on us as if it was some sort of miracle something or other that totally changes your life.
If we took everything that the "influencers" said we should we would be taking a mountain of pills every day.
My first memory of supplement BS that I can remember in my life happened a part-time job I had while I was in high school. There was an older co-worker that was taking the above product any time that people were going through the yearly part where it seems everyone gets sick to some degree, for us it was around November. I was looking at him mixing up his glass of vitamin enriched Tang and asked if I could see the box. It showed that each portion contains 3000% the amount of vitamin C that a person needs in a day and the claim that they were inferring but not directly stating because that would be illegal, was that more vitamin c means that you are less likely to catch a cold.
I can only imagine what their evidence for this claim was and it was most likely nothing at all. Or they had a group of people that took Evergen-C for half of the group and then the other half had zero vitamin C in their diet at all.
I actually ended up having a bit of a falling out with this older guy when I tried to tell him, I thought innocently enough, something along the lines of "isn't your body incapably of using more than 100% of something? This would be like continuing to pump gas long after the tank was full and having it all just fall on the ground right?"
He didn't like that very much and I think it may have been because I was 10 years younger than him and it looked like I was trying to upstage him. Maybe I was a little bit but to me it just seemed kind of stupid.
According to a very long-term study conducted by Harvard Medical School a vast majority of supplements that people take are simply a waste of money and a demand created by a poorly regulated or not regulated at all industry. As I was saying to my co-worker all those years ago, your body simply excretes the excess of what it cannot use in good scenarios, in worse situations though, the excess vitamins or minerals or whatever the hell it is that people are taking, put a strain on the liver and kidneys that through tens of thousands of years of evolution, are not structured to handle 30 times the amount of something that person would normally put into their body in a day.
They liken it to a hangover, but you can't really feel it until it is too late. We all know when we have drank too much and our bodies remind us that this was not a great idea the very next day. With over-saturation of vitamins, it could take many years before you find out that you have kidney failure or liver disease and nobody can really tell you why.
There are billions of dollars a year made in this industry though and while I don't care enough to look into it, I think the reason why this industry isn't regulated more than it is, is probably because the industry itself pays off politicians to look the other way.
I'm on with that I guess because ultimately I think it is up to the individual to make their own decisions in regards to their health and anyone that remembers the food pyramid of the 80's realizes that a lot of this crap is just made up so that a particular industry can sell more of their products.
The only supplements that I have taken and have noticed any real changes from are whey protein, which I carefully regulated when I need to get more protein in my diet, and also creatine because try as they may, nobody can find any adverse affect from it and it appears to help a lot of people out. This doesn't mean that we should be drinking it by the tub though because just like with vitamin C, there is only so much of it that your body can process.
Ideally, I think that most people would be better off to try to find a whole foods solution to their diet (the objects, not the store) because the time of processed food hasn't really existed all that long and therefore our bodies are ill-equipped to handle these abrupt changes. If you are eating meat, vegetables, and fruit on a daily basis, there is a very good chance - better than not actually - that you are already getting more than enough of all the vitamins and what not that you need anyway.
For me, unless there is a proven deficiency that pops up on a blood test done by a clinic or hospital, I see no reason for me to ever take any of these things. Which by the way, if you are not doing this sort of thing you probably should. I know a ton of people that go and take their dogs for regular blood tests but never do it for themselves. It isn't expensive.
I live in the land of the most absurd health care costs on the planet and I can get a broad spectrum blood test for all the major health things for about $50. So if you live in a country that doesn't have insane health care systems in place you can probably get it done for much cheaper than I can or perhaps even for free.
One of the things that I see a lot of people taking right now is over-the-counter "testosterone boosters." These people just presume that the one: need that sort of thing without any medical proof of that being the case and two: There is zero evidence that the oral capsules change anything at all. TRT (testosterone replacement therapy) is a very real thing though, and is something that the medical industry is learning more about every year.
I have been thinking about delving into it the next time I go to see my doctor. Apparently it is very affordable as well.
I know it can be tempting to get as much health as you can out of a container of pills and it certainly costs less than healthy food, but I feel like in the long run that whole foods and planned meals is a much better idea than a shelf filled with pills.
As long as we all keep buying into it though, the industry isn't going to stop peddling it. We all need to look out for our own health in our own ways and I never want the government or anyone else to FORCE us to do things a certain way. In the meantime though, I really believe that all of these industries are quite evil and will tell all the lies that they have to in order to get you to open your wallet.
For me, I would much rather just eat right and then every time I use the restroom I am going to know right away if I am doing it right. I don't want to find out 20 years from now that my liver is shutting down not because of booze, but because I took too much Vitamin K supplement - which by the way was not something I ever heard about until the past 5 years.
If you take supplements please understand that I am definitely not trying to tell you that you are wrong or stupid. I just think you might be wasting money. If you do take any and feel comfortable discussing it, I would like to know what you take and why.
