Your supplements and who to trust

As you journey through life, you learn people will always try to sell you something you don't need.

Some of you older folks will know this. And the smarter young ones, well, you already know this. (My first lesson in this was the bank lending me money for car end of Year 12… “no interest payments till you're out of uni!”)

Of late, I've come to the belief that nowhere is this more true than in the food industry, particularly in the supplement space.

(Obviously, it's rife amongst the fad diet proponents, and I'll deal with that down the track.)

The other day I received an email from examine.com, a site that aims to be a source of independent, verified information on supplements.

Now I like what Examine.com are doing, really I do. They're not selling supplements, which adds to their credibility considerably. Rather, they use in-house experts to look at a wide range of supplements and try and determine their efficacy in regard of their purported use.

Anyway, this email was about getting paid access to all their guides on supplements, as well as their “stack guides” (such as what supplements you need as a vegetarian). If you look at their stack guides page, you'll see they have a lot of Doctors and companies like Mens Health backing them up. Reeks of credibility, right?

Maybe. Or maybe not.

Now, I have a real issue with supplements and the marketing around them for a couple of reasons.

Appealing to our sense of guilt

Firstly, they appeal to our deep sense of guilt of needing to do the best thing for our bodies.

Now appealing to guilt is just standard operating procedure in marketing, and that's cool, I get it.

Moreover, there's nothing wrong with wanting to do the best by your body, but the problem is most people want a silver bullet, rather than looking at the fundamentals.

And this approach to our own health makes us very susceptible to marketing to this guilt and reticence to change.

What I mean by this is, you'll endlessly see marketing saying running along the lines of “make sure you are in the best shape” or “ensure you have adequate….(insert benefit/feature/Vitamin)” or “Cut fat in 2 weeks by Nutribulleting your Big Macs”.

It's insidious, and nasty. But it appeals right? And it works. As marketers we (and by we, I include myself, as I market my ebooks, SIM cards and so on to you) use the old formula of [For this much money] + [You will get] + [In this much time].

And when we're like this, or at least not self-aware about it, we're very susceptible to being sold things we don't need, or, that simply don't work.

And this makes us an absolutely prime target for pointless supplements.

And by my own observations, this is especially true of cyclists and amateur sports people. We're always looking for an edge in performance, an edge in recovery, a way to buffer lactate, cut fat; the list goes on.

But, you oughtn't feel bad. I mean look at this ridiculousness below. All these from when I was a poorly B grade racer trying to get to A grade, strip fat (from an already-low 7% body fat), improve recovery and so on.

Supplement madness

Synthesised products simplifies the complex

The second, and I think bigger, issue, is the proposition that humans can synthesise—into a convenient pill or powder, or in Examine's case, a ‘stacked protocol'—that which nature provides perfectly adequately.

I think it the height of conceit and hubris that a synthetic form of Vitamin C (for example) could be anything but largely useless when compared to the way naturally occuring Vitamin C will work with numerous phytonutrients (like the carotenoids found in coloured veggies) in a magical and mysterious way to confer huge benefits to one's body.

And, the evidence is fairly damning in this regard.

To take a specific example of this fallacy, let's look at Calcium. There is a perception that Westerners have a Calcium deficiency, which can lead to Osteoperosis.

There is plenty of evidence that one the keys reasons Westerners have such a large Calcium problem is *because* of the very food we are eating. Many Westerners traditionally eat a lot of animal protein and fat, which causes the body to become acidic. In response, the body needs to become alkaline. In the absence of large amounts of exogenous calcium (and other minerals) your body turns to a readily available source of calcium: your bones.

Consider that again: human eats animal-based food. Human blood becomes acidic. Human body leeches calcium from bones. Western medicine and food industry says “drink more milk” or “eat these tablets” to counter calcium deficiency.

In the absence of animal protein and fat (that is, a largely or complete vegan diet), calcium normalises.

Sadly, examples like this are replete, yet we easily and eagerly latch onto the idea this ailments can be, or need to be, cured with a supplement.

Because, after all, lots of people just don't want to give up dairy or meat (I'll happily admit these things in various forms are delicious), so are an easy sell for a silver bullet.

And the advice seems so well-meaning, so reasonably, so innocuous.

The real crux of the issue

So, I think this also masks a much more serious issue.

• The supplement industry, to a large extent (even operators with good intentions like Examine) doesn't address the root cause of many issues, but instead relies on a business-as-usual approach to health and nutrition to its own financial benefit. To be clear, I have zero problem with people making money from selling things people want or need.
• Something is fundamentally broken with our understanding of nutrition, when even alleged experts like GPs, can't identify the root causes of our issues. (Hint: nutrition is at the root of many ailments.)
• In a vast majority of cases, for a vast majority of people, these supplements are next to useless or redundant in the face of proper nutrition.

Remember, the human body is an incomprehensibly complex and well-tuned machine—perhaps the perfect machine—capable of such remarkable feats as killing cancers as they develop, regulating cholesterol, regulating calcium and more.

The idea we need to interfere with this with chemical compounds is puzzling to say the least.

Perhaps we might benefit more from stepping back and asking three questions.

1. Why do I think I need this?
2. Can I eat better to ameliorate any perceived symptoms? (Why take a supplement to strip fat, when most people eat way too much fat, especially in animal form.)
3. Can I obtain independent verification of this?
4. Who is saying (I need) this?
5. Why are they saying it?

Working out what works

Finding out what supplements actually do anything is becoming increasingly difficult.

Independent operators like Examine do help shed light on what works and what doesn't.

And you will always find evidence that supports almost every point of view (Atkins, paleo etc).

Government bodies like the Australian Institute of Sport may provide some clarity as well (here's their supplement overview, a good place to start).

But at the end of the day, I truly believe there is almost nothing that food and nature itself cannot provide.

Remember that the food industry is replete with misinformation, due in no small part to the fact that there is billions of dollars riding on you believing all of this. Vested interests, people.

Links

• Are you wasting money on supplements
• Vegan Cyclist – an adventure part 1
• Mother Jones – Everything We Know about Antioxidants and Vitamins is Wrong