Exploring Supplements: What Do I Actually Need?
When your goal is to eat healthy and improve your wellbeing, you probably think first to change the foods in your diet. And that’s a great place to start! At Viome, we’ve worked tirelessly to create a dynamic personalized nutrition platform that takes into account your own individual needs – gut microbiome and all. But if you’re looking for optimal health, it can be difficult to fill every gap to have your body performing its best.
Cue supplements – the dietary aids you may or may not have known you need.
What are Supplementary Nutrients?
Understanding the benefits of whole foods is just one aspect of nutrition. Alternatively, there is an entire industry devoted to supplemental nutrients, or ‘supplements’ targeted to fill in the holes of our daily diet. These alternative nutrients often originate from normal dietary compounds that may be common in food or difficult to consume regularly. Despite this, their health benefits remain. Yet finding which ones are right for you – and how much – requires more than just guesswork.
Precision Health Takes Precision Care
If you thought picking a brand of toothpaste was difficult, try choosing the right supplements. Currently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimates there are almost 30,000 types of supplements available for purchase.1 And not all of those are backed by science or even regulated properly. Instead, it could take you years, if not lifetimes, to decipher which ones are safe or advantageous for you. Moreover, each person’s individual needs and restrictions differ. What works for someone else, might not help you at all – or worse! It may even be harmful.
Some studies have documented varying harmful effects of superdosing supplements far past the recommended ‘upper limit.’2 Even if you’re staying within range, your body might not even be absorbing it properly, making it difficult to reap any benefits.
‘Trial and error’ isn’t an ideal method for anything, especially your health. But dietary supplements can account for a crucial turning point in claiming control over your journey. Fortunately, precision supplements may provide a new approach to diligently identify the optimal players in supplements and explore how best to get them to the right people – in just the right amount.
Specifically, it means optimizing not just which supplements can boost your immune system or tamp down inflammation – it’s about optimizing absorption at just the right level.
Our clinical nutritionists have created a line of nearly 200 nutrients ranging from vitamins to herbs to extracts chosen for their potent ability to improve health. Each recommendation is generated from your own Viome results and made to order with premium ingredients. Starting with your health test scores, we analyze what your body, cells, and microbiome needs. We’re not just creating your optimal supplemental nutrient line – we’re creating precise dosages that optimize your absorption, without creating excess waste.
Resources:
1 [Proposal on safety of supplements]. (2002). National Academic Press (US), National Library of Medicine.
2 Wooltorton, E. (2003). [Alert on effects of too much supplements]. CMAJ JAMC, PubMed Central.
