Use of Dietary Supplements on the Rise

Online, January 12, 2012 (Newswire.com) - In a perfect world, everyone would eat healthily all the time, getting all necessary nutrients, vitamins and minerals solely from dietary means. Unfortunately the world is not perfect, and with an increasingly busy work and home life, many people often barely find the time to eat anything, let alone a well-balanced diet. While the pace of modern society is unlikely to change anytime soon, people are increasingly resorting to other alternatives to the time consuming process of shopping for fresh food and cooking healthy meals at home. Use of dietary supplements is on the rise, with some reports suggesting that more than one half of adults over 20 in the UK are now using one or more supplements a day.

There is a dazzling array of supplements available, with some being more widely used than others. Vitamin C is one of the most commonly taken supplements, used to help prevent immune deficiency in those who don't eat enough fresh fruit and vegetables. Aside from helping the immune system, vitamin C is a known antioxidant and natural antihistamine and there is also growing evidence to suggest that vitamin C supplementation can help prevent some forms of cancer.

Iron supplementation is also extremely common, particularly for women and vegetarians, who may find it difficult to gain from dietary measures alone. While iron supplements are also used in medicine to treat iron-deficiency anemia, over the counter supplements are often prescribed to help combat symptoms of lethargy, which can sometimes be attributed to a lack of iron.

Another deficiency that is causing concern amongst nutritionists is a lack of vitamin D. The main source of vitamin D is natural sunlight, and with more and more people office bound throughout the day, vitamin D deficiency is becoming an increasingly widespread problem. In recent years, there has even been a rise in the number of cases of Rickets, a disease previously thought to have been eradicated. Rickets is attributed to a lack of Vitamin D and causes softening of the bones in children, leading to fractures and deformity. With so many children today gaining their entertainment indoors from television and video games, the rise can easily be explained, particularly in the UK where sunlight is often lacking compared with other countries. Considering the disease is so easily preventable, medical professionals consider this rise to be totally unacceptable and are beginning to prescribe vitamin D supplementation to help combat further incidences.

Along with vitamins, there are other supplements that many people benefit from, often to help alleviate symptoms of degenerative illnesses. One such supplement is the amino acid, glucosamine. Produced naturally by the body from a combination of glutamine and glucose, glucosamine is used to manufacture and repair cartilage, a process that slows down with age. Arthritis sufferers are the most common users of glucosamine supplements, with many claiming that it helps alleviate the pain and lack of mobility associated with the disease. Chondroitin is also frequently used to help treat arthritis, in most cases combined with glucosamine, and sold as "glucosamine chondroitin" to sufferers of osteo-arthritis, and other joint-related conditions.

While it is still ideal for people to gain their nutritional requirements from dietary sources, it seems that for many, supplement use is a convenient alternative, with the trend likely to continue well into the next decade.