Are Supplements Necessary for a Healthier Life?

Studies show that adding vitamins and supplements can both improve your health and increase your chances of living a longer, healthier life.

Are Supplements Necessary?

Everywhere you look someone is giving you advice. This is true for many areas of life, but none more evident than the plethora of advice about your health and diet.

The media, your doctor, your Mom, the internet, TV commercials and ‘friends’ are just a few of the things bombarding you with the right thing to do.

So it’s only natural to be confused and completely understandable for you to be asking yourself the question of whether or not you should be spending your hard earned money on food supplements.

Now you can add me to the list of places giving you their 2 cents worth. So why should you read on and take my advice? Simply put, I am backing up my opinion with solid scientific evidence and research studies. Plus I urge you to question what I say and read the studies yourself. Don’t take my word for it; prove it to yourself.

The first study I looked at was "The Vitamins and Lifestyle Study" (Pocobelli et al, American Journal of Epidemiology, 170: 472-483, 2009).

The study was done on a group of people from the state of Washington. It was a survey of over 75,000 residents between the ages of 50 and 76 and it looked at their lifestyles as well as their use of food supplements.

The groups were divided up into those who took multivitamins almost every day, those who took extra Vitamin E, those who took Vitamin C, and those who didn’t supplement their diet at all.

The main focus of the study was the overall death rate of the participants and the death rate due to cardiovascular reasons during a 10 year time span.

Basically the study found that those taking supplements had a reduced mortality rate compared to those who didn’t use supplements.

Here are some details: (all reductions are comparisons with non-supplement users)

Multivitamin users reduced their risk of cardiovascular mortality by 16%.

Addition of at least 215 mg of vitamin E each day reduced the death rate by 28% for cardiovascular reasons and 11% overall.

Taking at least 322 mg of vitamin C every day decreased mortality by 25% and 9% for cardiovascular and overall mortality respectively.

These results fall right in line with the results of the second study I looked at. The study has become known as the Landmark Study but is formally named “Usage patterns, health, and nutritional status of long-term multiple dietary supplement users: a cross-sectional study” (Nutrition Journal 2007, 6:30doi:10.1186/1475-2891-6-30 Published 24 October 2007)

The Landmark Study looked at 3 different groups. One group consisted of multi supplement users. This group was specifically from people who took vitamins and supplements manufactured by the Shaklee Corporation. A second group consisted of people who took a multivitamin/mineral supplement and the third group was made up of non-supplement users. Overall there were over 1000 people involved in the study.

The results of the study showed that that people who took Shaklee supplements had markedly better health than both multivitamin and non-supplement users. The full article and scientific details can be found on http://www.landmarkstudy.com.

Two separate studies both confirming the same thing; Food Supplements can lead to a longer and healthier life. The Vitamin Study shows that long term food supplementation decreases the risk of dying and The Landmark study shows that the use of food supplements creates a healthier life.

I guess it just goes to show that the old saying is true - "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".

Hopefully you can see why I think the answer to the original article questions about whether supplements are necessary and should you be spending your money on them are a resounding YES!

Real, honest scientific research has proven that people who consistently take a broad spectrum of food supplements drastically reduced the appearance of diabetes, coronary heart disease, heart attack, congestive heart failure, angina, stroke and emphysema when compared to people simply taking a multivitamin or no vitamins at all.

And while you might think the ounce of prevention seems expensive just image how expensive the pound of cure is. Those of you that know someone who has been hospitalized or required to take prescription drugs for an extended time understand exactly how expensive health care truly is.

(Speaking of prescription drugs, another fact from the Landmark Study showed that the group taking the balanced supplementation produced by Shaklee was on average taking less than one prescription drug. These participants averaged 65 years of age. This doesn’t seem like a big deal until you compare it to the national average for 65 year olds which is around 7-8 medications.)

To quote the MasterCard commercial, Vitamins $’s a day, other Supplements $, feeling better every day and living a longer healthier life – PRICELESS!

Ask anyone who has a chronic disease or is unable to truly live as they reach those later years in life the true value of health. Food Supplementation provides an amazing return on your investment.

As a final note, I would caution you to take care in your selection of supplements. Just like every other product you can buy there are good ones (natural and clinically tested) and those that are not so good (synthetics). But that is the topic for another webpage…