Customized Supplementation vs. Buying Over the Counter

Perhaps the most important factor in maintaining a healthy lifestyle is proper nutrition. The foremost way to do this is, of course, ensure that your are purchasing and preparing healthy foods rich in all necessary nutrients. However, busy schedules, budget constraints and a myriad of other reasons can make it difficult to ensure that you are always receiving all nutrients and in sufficient amounts.

Nutritional supplements are widely recognized as an effective way to augment one’s diet - either through single-nutrient supplements (Iron, Vitamin C etc.) or compound supplements like multivitamins. However, in order to ensure you supplementation is both yielding optimal results and is completely safe, matching your nutritional supplements with your lifestyle, medical conditions and any medications that you may take is extremely important. Previously considered an opulent luxury, a customized supplement plan based on standardized testing should be strongly considered as it is not only beneficial to your health but now affordable as well.

Regardless of our best intentions and attempts, it is not possible as laymen to accurately pinpoint where our nutritional shortcomings are and what appropriate supplement dosages should be. Attempting to do so and address deficiencies by purchasing over-the-counter supplements is often at best inefficient and at worst, dangerous. With incorrect assumptions on deficiencies, large sums can be spent on vitamins and other supplements that are providing no help whatsoever. And by ingesting incorrect doses of supplements, needed or not, we may actually make ourselves ill, in extreme cases causing damage to our bodies and increasing our risk of cancer [University of Colorado Cancer Center ].

This is where testing comes in. A comprehensive nutritional assessment in the form of a questionnaire designed by medical professionals is the first step. It covers basic information such as sex, age, weight/height etc. as well as medical history, medications currently and previously taken, lifestyle and activity levels, habits, nutritional and sleep patterns and any other information deemed pertinent. Always ensure that any such health assessment is certified as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ) compliant as this act protects the public from, among other things, health care fraud and privacy violations [Tennessee Department of Health]. Following this, the information is plugged into an algorithm that takes over 7500 peer reviewed, third party scientific studies to recommend a customized nutritional supplementation program that will be specific to the individual and construct a complete profile.  No more guessing.  The report can be downloaded and used to make lifestyle changes and your supplements can be ordered, if you choose, and come shipped to you in a convenient strip pack with your name on each pack for evening and morning dosing.  

Armed with this information, you can now be confident in what you are taking.  Not only does the plan specifically target the areas where you most need nutritional fortification, there is no danger of interaction with prescription medications or exacerbation of medical conditions. Often overlooked, but equally important is the removal of the risk of over supplementation - a very real hazard with certain nutrients.

A customized nutrition supplement plan helps ensure that the level of vitamins, minerals, and all other nutrients in our bodies are at an optimum level, that our organs and vital systems are being properly supported and regulated and that, quite simply, we are nutritionally as healthy as we can possibly be! 

Until next time keep reaching for that healthy, happy life you deserve!

ELLEN MAY
INTEGRATIVE NUTRITIONIST AND EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGIST


Take your FREE HIPAA compliant health assessment at: http://www.coachellen.idlife.com/IDNutrition