Many people are becoming more aware of the benefits of a regular supplement program. A good supplement program can prevent (or even reverse) serious illness. However, a poor supplement program can be worthless, expensive, and even dangerous.

Know What You Want to Achieve

This is the first step. It is a requirement. I have seen people walk around the GNC, and the salesperson starts telling them that supplement X is great for health, and the shopper puts it in their basket. That is not a reason to buy a supplement. You need to decide:

1. What health problem(s) do I currently have that I want to address? If you aren’t feeling 100%, but are not sure what is the reason. Then now is not the time to go dumping money on lots of supplements. A few key ones might be okay, but focus most of your effort on getting to the root cause of your problem.

2. What preventative goals do I want to achieve? Am I at higher risk of some illness than other people (i.e. cancer)? Am I an athlete and want peak performance?

Google Like Mad

Collect all sorts of opinions on what kind of supplements can be helpful for your goals. This is where you learn the names of ingredients that may appear in supplements that you would want to try.

Use Google Shopping

Say you wanted something to boost your immune system. For example, if you google shopped for “immune support”, then you can take a look at what ingredients appear in the supplements that come up in that search.

Research Individual Ingredients

After learning about what ingredients may make a supplement that interests you, there are a couple things to do. Go back to google and educate yourself about those ingredients. Also search for specific ingredients in Wikipedia. They will often have a nice summary.

You may think there is not much to this, but there can be a lot. Say you want to take a garlic supplement. Do you want the allicin from garlic? Do you want all the other components from garlic? What is the difference between allicin potential and allicin yield? What is enteric coated garlic? Does the garlic lose its potency if exposed to stomach acid? There are differing opinions on the answers to these questions. If you go with just one source of information- especially if that source has a financial incentive to bias the information- then it is very likely you can make a less than optimal decision.

Research Effective Doses

Here’s another example. Claritin is an over the counter allergy pill (antihistamine). If you look it up on Wikipedia, its active ingredient is loratadine. It comes in 10mg pills, because that is the highest FDA approved dosage to not cause drowsiness. But guess what? One study showed that Loratadine is not significantly different than placebo at doses below 10mg! Though some may benefit, most people are eating a placebo. To get real effect, more than 1 pill would need to be taken. Is that safe? Are you willing to do it? I sure don’t know, but wouldn’t you want to research on the web about what doses other people are taking?

Here’s another example. Say you get a supplement designed to heal your intestinal lining, such as L-glutamine. Some supplements deliver 500mg a serving. Some supplements deliver 5000mg a serving. Things like this should give you some insight into how much is safe, and how much you may want to take.

Get Product Suggestions from Other People

Once you have an idea of what kind of products and ingredients are out there for you, if you can, find a group of experienced people and ask them for links to what products they use. A good way is to search for Google Groups or Yahoo Groups for people who are in a similar situation you are in. For example, you might find a cancer support group, and could ask what kind of supplements people there are using.

Make Sure It’s Safe

Say you want to get a product called “XXX”. Just take the extra five minutes to make sure it’s safe. Google things like:

“XXX dangers”, or
“XXX safety”, or
“XXX contamination.”

This can be important. Say for example you want to take a chlorella supplement. Chlorella is a very popular super food, detoxifier, and heavy metal chelator. People sometimes use it to treat themselves for high levels of mercury. Did you know that some chlorella supplements may actually be contaminated with mercury? Did you know there is also speculation regarding if it is a strong enough chelator to actually remove mercury from your body? If it is not strong enough, it could in fact just redistribute mercury in your body, and make your health problems worse.

The moral of the story is to make sure it’s safe. Someone else may personally take a chlorella supplement everyday. They have weighed the risks and benefits in their situation, but you have to make up your own mind about your situation when it comes to the particular supplements you want to take.

Have a Few Trusted Sources of Information

I personally have a handful of doctors, whose opinions I value. I check their websites every time I want to try something new. This is a tremendous resource. It is very easy to pay big money to go and see your doctor, and then have them tell you their opinion about a supplement. If the doctor says that he encourages it, he probably knows something about it. If the doctor says he does not encourage it, he may know something about, but it is also likely he doesn’t. Those of you who have had the experience of seeing many doctors in your lifetime may realize that doctors are typically “down” on things that they are not “up” on. In this wonderful age of internet, you can easily collect the general opinions of several doctors at once. This is great news. If you only could consult one doctor, you’d get mislead quite a bit, as doctors tend to disagree quite often.

Let’s consider a couple relatively famous doctors for example: Dr. James Wilson encourages the use of glandular extracts in treating endocrine related conditions, such as adrenal fatigue. He has his own reasons, experience, and arguments. If you go and see Dr. Andrew Weil, you’ll see that he thinks glandular extracts might actually be unsafe. They definitely can’t both be right!

Don’t Skimp Out on Quality

If you are going to get a supplement, buy a high quality one. A high quality one does not always mean expensive. But we are talking about your health here. This is not about something trivial. You can pretty much forget about Walgreen’s, GNC, and Costco. I strongly recommend buying from online sources. If the brands carried in those stores are the best ones for you, then they should show up on your stringent internet research anyway, and be the ones left standing.

Other Ingredients

Make sure there are no substances you are allergic to in the supplement. Many supplements now market themselves as being “hypoallergenic”. Also, get a feel for what brands tend to have lots of additives and artificial ingredients in them. These won’t kill you, but if you have a choice between two equal products, pick the one without additives.

Check Multiple Buyers

Once you have found a supplement, check the prices of that supplement at multiple places.

Calculate the “Bang Per Buck”

You may find two products you can’t choose between. One way to break the tie is to calculate the cost per unit of substance in the supplement. For example, say a vitamin C supplement has 100 pills, each with 500mg of vitamin C. Say it costs $20. This gives you a value of:

(100 pills) X (500 mg per pill) / $20 = 2500 mg per dollar

Say a second vitamin C supplement you were considering gives you 1500 mg per dollar. Then, if all other considerations are equal, you probably want to get the one that is 2500 mg per dollar.

The Simple Few

My personal experience is that getting supplements with TONS of ingredients that try to do too much are typically less effective, and more expensive. Tend towards buying supplements with fewer ingredients. Say you are taking a supplement for energy with a bunch of ingredients. It makes you feel better. How are you to know which ingredient(s) is that one that is really helping you? Also, if you knew the ingredient, maybe you could buy it for cheaper individually, and take higher amounts of it?

Read the Serving Size

Some supplements may seem like a great deal…until you read that a serving size is three pills. It’s a nice way to make your product look like it is only one-third of the cost.

Don’t Be Impulsive

Countless times I have wasted money on supplements because I was impulsive. I reasoned it out that a certain product may help me, and then I bought it. Then the next day I would find out some more information that made me change my mind, or made me realize there was a better supplement I could have gotten.

Try your best to at least wait 24 hours before clicking the purchase button!

Buy Online

You will get far more variety. No question about it. Two good websites are iHerb and LuckyVitamin.

Try to buy in batches. For example, instead of buying something once every week, buy everything at once only one time a month. You can save a bundle on shipping costs this way.

Also google for promotion codes for the website you are buying from. You may be able to get a discount when buying online.

Be Organized

Buy a pill holder if you take a lot of things. Get one that has 4 slots per day. You can also keep and Excel spreadsheet with info on where you bought all your supplements. That way, you can always go back to the web to look up more info on it, and you will never forget where you got it when you need to reorder.

Take Pills At the Optimal Time

Some pills need to be taken on an empty stomach. Some are taken with food. Follow the directions. Some need to be taken a certain time day. Also, don’t take all your pills for the day all at once, but space them out over the day. Your body will absorb more of it.

Summary

Do your homework, and be disciplined. Supplements can be very costly, and have the potential to help or hurt your health. If you stay on top of it, you can be sure to find your way to an effective supplement program.

Disclaimer: This article is not medical advice. This is opinion and is for informational purposes only. If seeking medical advice, consult a licensed physician.

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