Tag Archive for: RDA

Identifying the Supplementation Sweet Spot

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I believe everyone should add a foundation of supplements to their diet, but there’s no reason to take supplements you don’t need. The last two weeks, I’ve written about the sweet spot for nutrition and exercise as I see it, so it just seems logical to do the same thing for dietary supplements. While supplementation can be very complex, there’s a foundation where we all begin. To me, that’s the sweet spot.

It all begins with a multivitamin-multimineral. With the gaps we have in our diet and with research confirming the gaps, that’s where we should start, but how to choose? Your ideal daily multivitamin-multimineral would have at least the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for all the major vitamins and minerals. It should also have a blend of dehydrated plant material to provide the phytonutrients we’d get in plants if we ate them. That’s it. Too many brands on the market throw in herbs for men’s health or women’s health. Not everyone needs them, so why put them in a foundation supplement?

The second nutrient is actually not a nutrient; it’s probiotics. If we don’t eat enough raw or fermented foods, we’re not adding to our microbiome; adding a probiotic supplement will help build a stronger, more effective microbiome. Does the number of strains matter? No, but it’s better with strains shown by research to be beneficial. Do the colony forming units (CFUs) matter? Again, no. What does matter is whether it contains a prebiotic or not, typically a fiber such as inulin. Because our diets are poor in this food source, purchase one that contains prebiotics.

Those two supplements are the foundation of nutrition for people of every age and condition; there are two more that most people probably need, and we’ll talk about those on Saturday. If you’re interested in more of the science behind my choices, pick up a copy of Supplementing Your Diet as either a download for yourself or the CDs to share with others. They’re all on sale at 25% off, and that’s in addition to Member and Insider discounts.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

2020 Supplement Facts Labels

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Supplement Facts labels can be confusing to say the least. How much of each substance is in a product? Is the source of the supplement natural or synthetic? And what exactly is an International Unit (IU) anyway? I’ve noticed that supplement labels have eliminated IUs and replaced them with weights in milligrams (mg) and micrograms (mcg). What’s going on?

In 2016, the FDA modified the rules for indicating label amounts and gave companies until January 1, 2020, to comply. The RDAs were changing and they wanted to standardize the units of measurement. The IU represented the biological activity of the vitamin, but the source of the vitamin could impact the actual amount of the vitamin in the supplement and thus, the biological activity.

For example, if a product contains natural vitamin E, to find out the mg, the IU would be multiplied by 0.67; but if it was synthetic vitamin E, it would be multiplied by 0.45. That means that a label that indicated 100 IU would now say 67 mg if it were natural vitamin E but 45 mg if it were synthetic. The label would also have to give the form of the vitamin.

The changes impact most of the fat-soluble vitamins and phytonutrients. It’s going to take time to get used to it and understand it, but I see it as a positive move that will help us all understand supplements better.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: http://bit.ly/2HSQ1Jm