Recently, I got asked by Lauren Caruso, a reporter in New York City, to comment on the benefits of taking supplements, ie. whether we all need to take supplements, whether some of us should take supplements at all, and what is the overall deal with supplements.
Firstly, I need to tell you that I personally used supplements on my health journey from when I was really sick, and I still do today. I obviously have supplements available in clinic and can offer them to clients but let’s dig a little deeper.
When it comes to supplements, the ingredients and the quality of those ingredients is really important as you want to be putting the best ingredients into your body. The next thing to consider is that you only want to be taking supplements that your body really needs. Our bodies are always trying to find homeostasis, which means balance. That’s why in clinic we test every supplement on your body before we recommend it as we need to know it’s the best for your body.
If you’re putting something into your body, we want to make sure your body needs it, and has the ability to absorb it, otherwise you’re going to be throwing yourself out of balance, even though you perceive you are doing the right thing.
I have so many clients coming into clinic who have been on a regimen of supplements that aren’t helping them. Or, in other cases, clients who come into clinic very unwell and as they start to get better they will credit their health to one particular supplement and ask to never come off it.
I had a client yesterday that came in and she was like, “That Cytozyme AD that you put me on (which was her adrenal supplement) was a game changer. Never make me come off it!” She believes that was one of the biggest game changers to getting her energy back again. She is now living the life she loves. She has her health back and has the energy to go to the gym, play with her children, and finish the day strong. It really has been a game changer for her. However, because she’s made the connection that this particular supplement has given her such great health benefits, the downside is she doesn’t want to come off it. But that’s not how our bodies work.
In clinic we help you to bring your body into balance and then you come off the supplements. We don’t want you wasting your time or money on supplements that are NOT working for you.
In order to use a supplement to restore health, I will always use blood work to work out what your body needs at that particular point in time. For example, if you do conventional blood labs, and they say you’re low in iron or vitamin D or B12, we will make sure you get more of those ingredients into your diet, but trying to get those levels up high enough and quick enough for you to notice differences in your body is really hard with diet alone. It’s much faster, and you get much better results with supplements, but then you want to maintain it with diet. That is key!
So for the client in question, we can functionally test her in clinic, and she will know when she can come off the Cytozyme AD and know that it’s not going to impact her health. But if she keeps taking it, it could impact her health for the worse, because it’s going to throw her out of balance. It’s going to throw her out of homeostasis.
I 100% use supplements in clinic for restoring health to clients. It’s quicker and it brings our levels up much easier. That’s why we use them as a tool in clinic. But you always want to test. Whether it’s with me using functional testing, or blood labs, or your functional lab tests to make sure you need them.
Only use supplements when you need them to get to levels of optimal health. After that, if you know, for example, somewhere in the world (where you live) is low in a particular nutrient in the soil, well then maybe you are going to have to look at long-term supplementation, because you’re not going to be able to get that from your diet.
So, we obviously want to make sure that you’re getting a varied, balanced diet. That is 100% key. What goes into your mouth food-wise is key for good health. But targeted supplementation can be really beneficial for your health and a real ‘game changer’ to meeting your health goals. You want to make sure you’re not wasting your money or wasting your time, or throwing your body further into imbalance. Because if it’s imbalanced with what you’re taking, you’re not going to get the results that you want.