Throughout my professional practice I have been chagrined at the wide variety of nutritional supplements to treat an even wider variety of maladies. The regulations to ensure purity and potency, as well as the efficacy of such products has been very slack allowing less scrupulous producers to flood the market with crap. The benefits for many if not most products are dubious at best.
Such products are mostly harmless. At the very least they provide some entertainment and give people desperate to find some control over their health the illusion your are doing something beneficial. I suppose that can be understandable as, while modern Western health care has come a long way, it still falls short in many ways in it's availability, delivery, and despite the best of efforts, limitations.
Some nutritional supplements however, carry a degree of toxicity and/or unfortunate cross reactions with other supplements and medications. And... people may do themselves preventable harm if they reject conventional and tested medically oriented treatments for otherwise bogus remedies.
Trying to find good answers via the internet can be very challenging. There is much information that is based on conjecture, opinion, special knowledge, an effort to convince the consumer to buy a particular product, and plain misinformation. Much of it may be well intentioned, but it is still wrong. And while everyone may be entitled to an opinion, not every opinion is entitled.
How then is one to know what products are helpful and at least meet some standard of purity and potency?
Information from well know hospitals and universities is generally a good source (Mayo Clinic, Harvard Medical School). You may wish to see what research is available by using Google Scholar. Individual/independent sources should back up their claims by credible sources.
To review:
To help you toward your own informed decisions, here is a link to a respected source of research and information:
Click on the logo below
Dr. Wayne Coghlan
www.drwaynecoghlan.com
[email protected]