What Supplements Do
According to the dictionary, a ‘supplement’ is:
“Something added to……make up for a deficiency, or extend or strengthen the whole’
And that is exactly what dietary supplements are designed to do too, as we have already seen that the average Western diet, whilst it is extremely ‘rich’ in many ways (high in calories and unhealthy fats, for example) it is nevertheless ‘deficient’ in lots of critically important nutritional respects too.
The 2002 JAMA report highlighted the need for daily supplementation as a result of evidence gathered from large scale population-based studies.
That is, comparisons were made between large numbers of people in a group who were supplementing their diet, with a similarly large number in the same group who were not, to produce real world results that indicated whether supplements really do ‘add’ anything to human health.
And it is important to note that the results, whilst they were often quite staggering, should not necessarily be taken as representing something that we can genuinely call ‘proof’
For example, in two separate large studies of self-supplementation, vitamin E was strongly associated with significantly reduced coronary risk.
The studies, involving 39,910 males and 87,245 females reported that both men and women who took vitamin E supplements for more than two years showed a 37% (for men) and a 41% reduction (women) in the incidence and increased risk of heart disease.
This would clearly indicate that there is a direct link between the administration of vitamin E and the decreased risk of heart disease so that we might say from this that we know what supplements do.
Notwithstanding the strength of the evidence, however, even such a clear indicator does not completely and inarguably ‘prove’ that the vitamin E was the sole cause of the vastly reduced risk levels.
In the strictest scientific terms, even such a dramatic test result cannot establish proper cause and effect, because the results noted may not be entirely due to the effect of nutritional supplements, and there may have been other factors that affected the results.
However, even without such results, it would just seem to be common sense that, if you add back to the whole (person) something that should be there, something that is now missing, then that will make the whole that much stronger.
Nevertheless, individuals will react to dietary supplements in different ways, and there is no guarantee that what works for me will do the same for you in exactly the same manner.
Rather than attempting to hold out supplements as a proven wonder cure for all human ills (as many of the companies that manufacture them attempt to), let us say that there is almost no doubt that supplements will greatly aid the health of most people who take them, and the doubt that there is, is almost non-existent.