Often I hear that supplements are a type of ‘safe-guard’ against deficiency.
There are two easy ways to counter this argument.
1. It is a lot more costly to buy supplements, rather than get them in foods (in foods you are also likely to get other additionally beneficial ingredients).
2. You could be putting yourself at risk of toxicity by having too much. Yes, you can have too much. Just as there are unsafe lower limits in micronutrient intake, there are also unsafe upper limits. You are not going to get too much of a micronutrient by eating a varied diet.
After many years of resistance, I have slowly been resigning to supplements being not such a bad thing for some people in some instances. However, recently some studies have been getting a lot of publicity that showed the increase incidence of death from taking certain supplements. Here is a link to a report about the study.
The argument from pro-supplement people has always been that it is better to be safe than sorry. It is better to take supplements as a safeguard – just in case you need them, as they won’t do any harm. While this still may be the case for many supplements the recent studies clearly show this is not the case for some too.
