Types of Nutritional Health Supplements and Their Effects on the Body

Basically, nutritional health supplements covers a broad range of dietary products that add supporting nutrients to one's daily meals. They may include vitamins and minerals, and purer forms of organic compounds, such as amino acids and antioxidants. Most supplements are manufactured as tablets, pills or capsules while others are in liquid form. When supplements are created as powder, consumers are expected to mix them with their food or a beverage, which they drink after a meal or as a substitute to a meal. Common Types of Dietary Supplements According to health experts and physicians, there are ten commonly used dietary supplements. These include: multivitamins, meal replacements, sports nutrition, calcium, B Vitamins, Vitamin C, Glucosamine and Chondroitin, Herbal or Homeopathic Medicine, Vitamin D, and Fish Oil. The reason why some of these supplements have been isolated when they obviously belong to one category is that many retailers sell them as separate products. Generic multivitamins, for instance, contain only a small portion of each vitamin and mineral while a pack of Vitamin C capsules purchased from Nutrition warehouse health supplements may contain 500 to 1,000 milligrams each. Meanwhile, the rest of these health supplements are taken for specific purposes. For instance, the combined intake of glucosamine and chondroitin has been proven to relieve moderate to severe arthritic pain among patients. Although many of the studies on homeopathic medicine resulted to symptomatic relief, many doctors still hold back judgment on the effectiveness of these herbal supplements. For example, some patients who took St. John's Wort to ease symptoms of depression reported its effectiveness, but doctors warn that it can also reduce the potency of some drugs, such as antidepressants and birth control pills. In a similar vein, antioxidants have also been known to counteract some types of cancer chemotherapy. Meal Replacements and Sports Nutrition Supplements Nutritionwarehouse supplements that serve as substitutes for meals and nutritional health supplements targeted at athletes and fitness builders contain higher amounts of vitamins and minerals, plus purer formulas for aminos and proteins. They're very effective in providing individuals with proteins the body needs for energy production, which helps build muscles. For people that avoid eating meat because of dietary requirements (like with heart patients) or philosophical ideals (like with vegans), the integration of protein supplements is actually a blessing to them. Similarly, individuals who've been recommended to lose weight to improve their health appreciate the use of meal replacements with creatine (a protein compound), which hastens metabolism. In conclusion, specific vitamins or multivitamins are best used to supplement one's daily diet, but these shouldn't serve as replacements to the nutrients that you can get from consuming fruits and vegetables, eggs, milk, meat, fish, and poultry. On one hand, people who already suffer from a health condition and needed to fortify their daily diet with vital nutrients, including proteins, benefit from these health supplements. Moreover, individuals with a fitness goal, either to reduce weight or to increase muscle mass, greatly benefit from consuming sports nutrition supplements and meal replacements. They have to consume these several times in a day and during intense physical activities to prevent their muscles from going through a catabolic process.