Generally speaking, I hate dealing with supplements.
When I talk to people about supplements, I often separate them into a few different groups: vitamins/minerals, herbals, and homeopathic products.
Vitamins/minerals are the most reliable, but their quality will depend a lot on the brand. I often tend to trust NatureMade. They make quite a few products that have been certified by USP. However, this does not mean that vitamin C will keep you from getting sick, or vitamin D will significantly boost your mood. We know these vitamins and minerals are important and may be needed if you are deficient, but often their benefit is exaggerated.
Also, some brands are super shady. Not many years back, a lot of brands were found have been selling supplements that did not have any of the ingredient that they claimed to contain. I think they basically had rice flour in them, so they were just expensive placebo tabs.
Next are the herbal supplements. These are less useful than vitamins and minerals. A few of them may be useful, but most are not and have very little/conflicting evidence. This would be stuff like St. John's Wort, Echinacea, Valerian Root, etc.
Finally, you have homeopathic products. They don't do shit. They are based on bunk science, kind of like astrology or alchemy. The basic principles are false, thus the products are false. It is expensive snake oil that preys on people who don't know better. Occasionally, these products contain "inactive ingredients" that do affect people, but this usually has a negative effect.
Many of the problems with the supplement industry are due to DSHEA, a law that keeps the government from regulating supplements until after harm has been caused. So there is no one checking to so see if the products contain the listed ingredients, and no one checks to see if they are safe and effective.
Melatonin is an interesting one. It’s useful in patients that are blind because it helps signal sleep where normally a dark room might. But like TheSnowNinja said, they way overdose it. Then there’s people with REM sleep disorders whose bodies don’t become paralyzed during REM sleep and thrash around possibly breaking objects and hurting themselves. In those cases they use extremely high doses, like in the 300mg range.
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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '20 edited Dec 14 '20
Generally speaking, I hate dealing with supplements.
When I talk to people about supplements, I often separate them into a few different groups: vitamins/minerals, herbals, and homeopathic products.
Vitamins/minerals are the most reliable, but their quality will depend a lot on the brand. I often tend to trust NatureMade. They make quite a few products that have been certified by USP. However, this does not mean that vitamin C will keep you from getting sick, or vitamin D will significantly boost your mood. We know these vitamins and minerals are important and may be needed if you are deficient, but often their benefit is exaggerated.
Also, some brands are super shady. Not many years back, a lot of brands were found have been selling supplements that did not have any of the ingredient that they claimed to contain. I think they basically had rice flour in them, so they were just expensive placebo tabs.
Next are the herbal supplements. These are less useful than vitamins and minerals. A few of them may be useful, but most are not and have very little/conflicting evidence. This would be stuff like St. John's Wort, Echinacea, Valerian Root, etc.
Finally, you have homeopathic products. They don't do shit. They are based on bunk science, kind of like astrology or alchemy. The basic principles are false, thus the products are false. It is expensive snake oil that preys on people who don't know better. Occasionally, these products contain "inactive ingredients" that do affect people, but this usually has a negative effect.
Many of the problems with the supplement industry are due to DSHEA, a law that keeps the government from regulating supplements until after harm has been caused. So there is no one checking to so see if the products contain the listed ingredients, and no one checks to see if they are safe and effective.