Supplements in the spotlight

Confused about supplements? Dr Jenny Goodman has the lowdown on why we need them, how to choose a top-quality product and the ingredients to avoid

Do we need nutritional supplements? The short answer is some of us do, some of the time. But why? Why can’t we get all the nourishment we need from food?

The reality is the soil in which our food is grown has been depleted of nutrients by decades of intensive farming with fertilizers and pesticides. Then our food is transported, stored and wrapped in plastic. And many of us are not digesting or absorbing it well.

Also, the amount of nutrients our bodies require has been greatly increased by stress, pollution and numerous other aspects of 21st-century life. So the gap between what we need and what’s in our food is growing wider.

Supplements can never be a substitute for good food, fresh air, exercise, sufficient sleep and so on. But they may be a necessary add-on to those things at certain moments in our lives.

Here’s what you need to know about how to choose them—what to look for, what to avoid—when to take them and which ones you can combine.

Choosing a supplement

When choosing supplements, you are looking for maximum nutrients with minimum rubbish—and finding this is a challenge.

By “rubbish” I mean the astonishing amounts of fillers, flavors, colors, coatings, binding agents, lubricants, thickeners, stabilizers, preservatives and anti-caking agents that many cheap supplements contain.

Some of these substances are also used in the building and decorating trades, and in cosmetics.

Pharmaceuticals often contain worse additives and more of them. You don’t want to be swallowing these chemicals along with your vitamins and minerals; it defeats the object.