If you’ve ever taken a dietary supplement, there’s a good chance that you have wondered to yourself: “Am I wasting my money on this?” The answer is probably yes.
There are a metric ton of different supplements you can take, and many of them are taken for different reasons than others, some of them with varying effects and others having almost none.
However, I, along with many experts, do not think that supplements are by any means necessary for the vast majority of people.
About 86% of Americans take vitamins or another supplement; however, only 24% of them have a nutrient deficiency, according to a 2019 survey conducted on behalf of the American Osteopathic Association.
However, surveys on the amount of Americans who take supplements show varying amounts, such as a 2017-2019 survey that found 57.6% of Americans take dietary supplements.
Yet the consensus remains that supplements are not necessary for most people.
Of course, there are some groups of people where taking dietary supplements is certainly justified, like athletes.
It makes sense for a professional athlete who is trying to level up their performance or a student-athlete on their way to the big leagues.
For those who practice sports more recreationally, such as a casual gymgoer or a street basketball player, supplements are far from necessary.
However, it would certainly not be unreasonable or a waste of money to take them if that person wants to take their activity more seriously.
Another group of people where it certainly makes sense or may even be necessary to take dietary supplements is someone with a nutrient deficiency or a medical condition.
The most common nutrient deficiency worldwide is vitamin A deficiency, according to Cleveland Clinic.
For people with vitamin A deficiency, it might be necessary for them to take a vitamin dietary supplement, not just optional.
With that being said, it is almost always better to simply get your source of vitamins and minerals from food instead of supplements.
Registered dietitians recommend eating food instead of taking supplements if possible because food can provide a rich complex of vitamins and minerals where supplements can’t, according to an American Heart Association article.
One of the other problems is that these supplements sometimes are not absorbed as well as food, and do not contain other important nutrients like fiber that you can get from food, according to the same article.
The next, and perhaps most important issue, is the hefty cost of supplements.
Multivitamins can range in costs from $15 for 60 servings to $80 for 60 servings and sometimes even higher, according to Walmart’s shopping search.
For $15 and 60 servings, that would be around $7.5 dollars per month, which may not sound like much, but it’s money some people can’t afford, and could use for food.
If a person is deficient in a particular nutrient, using a supplement is a much more acute means of solving the problem instead of eating it in their diet.
Context is certainly important, however, because someone without access to common sources of a nutrient they are deficient in would probably be better off simply taking a supplement instead.
The common attitude among people seems to be that taking your daily multivitamin is just another part of your day, but this isn’t necessary for most people.
When you don’t have a nutrient deficiency and you aren’t at risk of developing one, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing for your health, but it is certainly a bad thing for your wallet.
On top of being a huge waste of money, there is such a thing as overdosing on vitamins and minerals.
Perhaps the most well-known example of this is the skin developing a slightly orange hue when you eat a lot of carrots, which contain a high amount of vitamin A.
Acutely, this isn’t really a problem if it doesn’t happen very often, but over a longer period of time, this can cause a significant amount of organ damage to your liver, bones and skin, according to a StatPearls research article.
This kind of harm can happen with any vitamin or mineral, such as iron toxicity resulting in liver damage and potentially failure, or calcium toxicity causing impaired kidney function, according to the University of Florida Health.
Vitamins are the most common dietary supplement people take, however they are far from the most useless.
People who take vitamin supplements without needing them are just wasting their money, but this problem is much worse when taking a look at other wellness products.
Supplements do not have to follow the same regulations as drugs, and as a result, supplement and wellness companies often use manipulative marketing tactics to get you to buy their products.
Before a dietary supplement goes on the market, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not approve the supplement’s safety nor evaluate claims made about the product, according to the FDA website.
There are some dietary supplements that have thorough research on their efficacy; however, they are far and few between because companies do not need to prove their efficacy.
Unfortunately as a result, many supplements should be considered synonymous with snake oil because they either do nothing or they do so little that the difference is unnoticeable.
Most of the time, if a claim that a supplement product makes sounds too good to be true, there’s a very high chance that it is.
So the next time you buy a supplement, first consider its necessity of whatever plans you have, and secondly if it is even worth your money in the first place.
