Summary
While over 75% of Americans take dietary supplements, research shows mixed results regarding their efficacy and safety.
Only a small fraction of supplements are rigorously tested, and the FDA has limited oversight, treating them as food rather than pharmaceuticals.
Some supplements, like multivitamins, may offer modest benefits, while others, particularly those with “mega doses,” can be harmful or ineffective.
Experts emphasize that most people can meet their nutritional needs through a healthy diet, though supplements may benefit those lacking access to diverse foods.
Misleading claims and a desire for health control drive their popularity.
I never liked them but over time have stuff I take. It falls into two groups. Ones were I experience noticeable effects that I want and ones that theoretically might have some benefit. The first thing I would call a supplement is pscyllium husk as metamucil or a generic equivalent. This had noticable effects on my stool. I never took it regularly but sorta as needed. Later I would sometimes take fish oil pills and probiotics but never really saw an effect and it was by and large sporadic usage. Eventually I had hemmoroids and one early treatment was diosimin whih can actually also be taken in smaller dosage as a preventative. Since its also sold as a supplement and fairly cheap I take it as a maintenance thing. It has a noticable effect as I am not good at consistancy with taking pills. So noticable ones are ones were if I don’t take it I lose the beneficial effects. So my doctor recomended vitamin D but I never saw much of an effect. Later my eye doctor recommended fish oil for dry eye so I decided to switch to cod liver pills supplemented with more vitamin D and take them more consitantly. I saw an effect with the dry on eye on that and now take one in the morning and one in the evening. It does not exactly get rid of my dry eye but if I don’t take it, it is worse. Curiously I also found a probiotic which worked so well I actually stopped using metamucil. Its the first one were it had a noticable effect for me. So now I take two pills twice per day that I know work. diosomin and the cod liver oil and one sorta as needed with the probiotic (I find my gut gets seeded and it works for awhile but then my crap diet causes it to be lost). I have two others. One is glycine which are due to some studies that link back to walfords work on dietary restriction and another a study showing it aids sleep. I have no idea if it does anything but its also the most likely not to have bad effects unless the supplier is not putting glycine in it but glycine is from collagen which is about the cheapest substance you are going to come across anyway. I was taking a variety of supplements including berberine, resveratrol, and quercentin based on some studies. I eventually found a combo one that had these and since its all sorta a pipe dream and not a noticable effect one I get that now to reduce the number of pills. So in the end I take two pills that I know are useful as I can experience the effects and two that are guess work one of which I very much doubt would be dangerous given there is not financial incentive to replace it with anything cheaper. as for the other I hope its legit but if not I hope they would cheapen it by using relatively harmless collagen.