Whether the vitamin and mineral supplement that you are taking daily is doing anything good to you or not is important to know before you head to the nearest chemist shop to buy the fresh stock next time. These are the dietary supplements that make up for the missed out nutrients that one cannot gather from foods. But if you are someone who is eligible to have anything and everything without any major health issues, don’t you think having a wholesome diet is better than popping in a few pills? Health experts have always been divided over the claims of the nutrient supplement makers. The reason behind this never-stopping growing popularity of vitamins and minerals is because of the marketability of the products over the fact that vitamins and minerals are essential for a human being’s bodily functions but they are not synthesised by the body. The fact is, whatever the body cannot produce on its own, it absorbs from the food we take. DO YOU REALLY NEED SUPPLEMENTS? — “Supplements are never a substitute for a balanced, healthful diet,” says Dr JoAnn Manson, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health. “And they can be a distraction from healthy lifestyle practices that confer much greater benefits.” Though it is believed that supplements improve health, many research studies have confirmed that these offer no health benefits. MANY TIMES YOU ARE SIMPLY OVERLOADING YOUR BODY WITH NUTRIENTS — in this busy life, it is difficult to put together every food linked to the essential nutrient on our food plate. While on one hand the hectic daily life does not leave much time to focus on the diet, we can’t afford to miss out on nutrients which can affect our health in the long run. Supplements seem to be the solution, in this case. Without paying any attention to whether our body needs the nutrients we simply gulp them down with a false belief that we are doing justice to our biological system. DUE TO SUPPLEMENT DEPENDENCY, YOU ARE MISSING OUT ON ACTUAL DIETARY BENEFITS — our food does not only comprise vitamins and minerals. There are tons of other micro and macronutrient elements that we get from the food that we eat. One of the essential elements that supplement dependency will deprive you of is the benefits of the dietary fibres. These natural elements are abundantly found in several food items and are godsend for those who have bowel movement issues like constipation. Health experts have always been divided over the claims of the nutrient supplement makers DO YOU THINK HAVING SUPPLEMENTS IN EXTRA WILL MAKE YOU HEALTHIER? — no. Anything that goes inside the body in abundance, is either likely to come out as such thus wasting the money that went to buy that supplement or else it will pile up inside the body and create toxicity. Extra consumption of vitamin A, D, E and K supplements are known to cause toxicity in the body and these accumulated elements can affect several organs like the kidney. High doses of vitamin E may lead to stroke caused by bleeding in the brain, extra calcium may increase the risk of kidney stones, extra amount of vitamin D can affect kidney function, taking vitamin B6 for a year or longer has been associated with nerve damage that can impair body movements, high amount of beta carotene have been linked to a greater risk of lung cancer in smokers. ARE YOU SELF-MEDICATING YOURSELF WITH SUPPLEMENTS? — if yes, you need to stop it right now. Since they are mostly safe without having any visible side effects, and only having side effects in long term usage or overdoses, many people do not feel the need to consult a doctor before buying supplements. As per a study, more than 23,000 emergency department visits per year were attributed to adverse events related to dietary supplements. The stud*y published in the New England Journal of Medicine used nationally representative surveillance data from 63 emergency departments obtained from 2004 through 2013 to describe visits to US emergency departments. Among the patients were children under 4 years of age who had suffered allergic reactions or digestive disorders. SO, ARE NUTRIENT SUPPLEMENTS A COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY? — no. They are not. It depends on who is consuming these supplements. If you are a healthy individual with no medical complications or dietary restriction, you are not deficient of any nutrient only until you deliberately do not consume the nutrient rich food. People who are medicated, are restricted to have certain types of food, are vegetarians, are vegans, are old and for some reason do not have access to a particular nutrient-dense food, can take supplements. Pregnant women need extra supplements for themselves and for the child.