Conclusion
As a relatively recent convert to the idea of taking supplements myself, I admit that, when I first started researching for this book, I did not really expect to find a subject matter that was anywhere near as fascinating as the one that I eventually uncovered.
Nor did I anticipate that there would be so many different factors that you need to know about and consider when assessing exactly which dietary supplements you should spend your money on.
Perhaps naively, I probably believed that all dietary supplements were pretty much the same, that, apart from the fact that brand A was way more expensive than brand B, there was really little that was fundamentally different between the two.
As this book demonstrates, I was very wrong.
There are many very important and real differences between different brands of supplements and, indeed, in the most extreme circumstances, ignorance of these differences could actually harm you as a consumer.
I was similarly somewhat surprised just how difficult it was (and is) to make valid comparisons of the different brands of supplements on the market, and how little independent information is available to help you to make these choices.
This is a problem that is made worse by the fact that supplements are not really regulated, and that they are sold into the market in so many different ways.
For example, it would be common consumer practice when trying to compare the quality of two products, one against the other, to use price as a general guideline to the quality.
You expect to pay more for a Ferrari than a Ford simply because the quality is going to be higher, and that is taken as a given.
However, supplements are brought to the market through various different distribution channels, and so even a price based comparison is not always going to be a valid or valuable one.
For example, some supplements are sold across the counter in discount stores and pharmacies.
Fine, you would realistically expect that the product sold in the pharmacy would be better than that which you buy from the discount store, and, to a large extent you would be correct.
However, many supplements are sold into the market through networks of self-employed independent distributors or Multi-Level Marketing programs, and the prices of these products often do not bear a great deal of relationship to the rest of the marketplace.
In effect, the distribution channels at work in this situation will skew any attempt to use price as a meaningful guide to quality.
So, my conclusion is this.
Most of us do not get the nutrients that we need from our daily diet for a wide variety of reasons, some of which we can directly influence and some of which we cannot.
Thus, supplementing your diet with additional essential nutrients should be something that everyone considers, as part of an attempt to reach and maintain your optimum levels of both personal health and fitness.
Such supplements are a foodstuff, rather than a drug, according to government agencies across most of the Western world.
And, you are what you eat.
Thus, by extension, any supplement that you take on board will gradually become a part of you, a constituent part of the ‘you’ that you will continue to develop into.
Taking a regular ‘dose’ of nutritional or dietary supplements is probably something that you already know that you should do, rather than being a matter of truly free choice.
Therefore, it follows that you must do everything in your power to ensure that any supplements that you do consume are the best that you can afford.
As I have stressed time and again, quality is the key, and that is something that you should never lose sight of, if your health and wellbeing are important to you.
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