Are dietary supplements toxic and why

The toxicity of dietary supplements cannot be generalized at all. For regular products that are marketed in compliance with regulations, if you take them strictly according to the recommended dosage in the instructions, there will be almost no toxicity; but if you eat them randomly, overeat, or buy inferior products with illegal additions, the risk of toxicity is not low.

Nowadays, there is a lot of quarrel on the Internet about this issue. One side says that supplements are all "poison pills" and will damage the liver and kidneys if taken. The other side says that supplements are naturally extracted and it is okay to eat more. Both of these opinions are too extreme. When I was doing dietary consultation before, I met a young man who was working out. He bought a bunch of plant supplements called "testicle-stimulating" from somewhere in order to build muscle. His kidney function was a bit weak. After taking it for three months, his physical examination showed that his creatinine exceeded the standard. The doctor said that if he continued to eat, he would develop kidney failure. There is also a mother who followed the trend and bought an internet-famous imported algae oil supplement in order to supplement her child’s DHA. After taking it for half a month, her child kept complaining of nausea. When she sent it for testing, she found that the heavy metal cadmium in the supplement was more than three times the legal limit. This is not a supplement, it is clearly harmful.

In fact, the dosage setting of normal supplements is based on the reference intake of dietary nutrients of residents. For example, the content of each tablet of multivitamins that everyone often takes is basically 80%-100% of the recommended daily amount. Even if you occasionally take an extra tablet, the body will metabolize it and it will not reach the poisoning threshold. Take the "vitamin A poisoning" that everyone often hears about. You have to take thirty or forty normal-dose vitamin A tablets at one time, or take more than a dozen tablets a day for several months before you will suffer from dizziness, hair loss, and liver damage. Who would do this if they eat normally?

Why do some people always have problems taking supplements? Most of them have stepped on several common pitfalls: either they blindly believe in "more supplements are better", such as eating thousands of milligrams of vitamin C a day to whiten their skin, or taking biotin to prevent hair loss, which is several or even dozens of times more than the recommended amount. Even water-soluble nutrients that cannot be metabolized will put a burden on the liver and kidneys, and even cause stones and nerve damage; or they buy non-compliant products. Western medicine ingredients are secretly added to red weight loss, impotence, and whitening supplements, such as sibutramine, phenolphthalein, and tranexamic acid, which have clear side effects. Of course, they are prone to problems if they are taken. Some people who have underlying diseases still take them blindly. For example, people with coagulation disorders consume excessive amounts of fish oil, and people with gout consume large amounts of yeast supplements. Things that are not poisonous in the first place can become "poisons" if they are not symptomatic.

To be honest, there is no need to treat supplements as a scourge, and don’t treat them like a panacea. If you are short of supplements, take them according to the dose. If you buy products with a blue hat label or legal import registration, you will basically not run into the so-called "toxicity" problem. You are afraid that you will just follow the trend and eat without knowing anything. No matter how good the food is, problems can still occur.