Dietary Supplements - Supporting Health or Making High Priced Urine?

The debate about supplements never seems to end.
For years many people thought of them as high-priced, but useless.
Even today, some doctors think they are not necessary.
But what is the real truth about them? Are they just for health nuts? Or should we all be taking at least some every day? The case against supplementing is fairly simple.
Those who support this idea say we get all our nutrients from the food we eat.
But there are problems with this view.
For one thing, modern agriculture depletes vital nutrients from the soil.
At the same time, it adds back only a small part of what is depleted.
The number of nutrients in modern foods is only one tenth what it was only 100 years ago.
There are many reasons for this.
Modern growing methods often sacrifice quality for the sake of speed and size.
In addition, current storage and transportation allows food to be placed on store shelves sometimes weeks after harvesting.
And even if you eat mostly natural, organic food, even that food usually came from somewhere else.
It still has the problems of long transport and storage time.
Vital nutrients are lost in this process.
Add to that the fact that most foods in the grocery store are processed.
Processing takes out even more of the nutritional value.
If these were the only reasons to take supplements, they would likely be enough.
But there are more reasons that support supplementing your diet.
Modern research shows that many chronic illnesses result from deficiencies in basic nutrition.
That means if you suffer from chronic pain, fatigue, poor digestion or any other chronic disease, you are likely to be lacking in some nutrients.
Another factor is the stress of modern living.
Today living is far more stressful than it was 100 years ago.
Stress depletes vital substances from the body.
And that stress may not only be from deadlines or politics at the office.
We are exposed to many toxic substances each day.
They enter our bodies through the water we drink, the food we eat and the air we breathe.
The body has to work hard to remove these toxins.
An additional factor is modern life in general.
With all the commuting, traveling and hectic living we all do these days, it is obvious that eating perfectly is not always easy.
Sometimes it is not even possible.
And every time we eat less healthy food, we reduce our health.
Hopefully you can see that even the best diet may not provide all the nutrition you need.
That's the best reason to consider taking supplements.
After all, you only get one body, so why not treat it to the best nutrition possible.