With the number of available vitamins and supplements online promising all kinds of things, you’re probably wondering what the difference is between the two. The fact that there are vitamin supplements might also seem to be terribly confusing, at least to the uninitiated. To help you, we’ve come up with a list of the key differences between the two so that you’ll be more certain what to buy the next time you’re at the drugstore or supermarket.
1. Supplements Can Help
These days, you can now get yourself a supplement that can help your body deal with all kinds of complications like diabetes, kidney diseases, erectile dysfunction, weight loss, and many more. Of course, the rather large number of available food supplements also mean that some of them, the dodgy ones, have the bad habit of promising more than what they could offer. Basically, claiming to be wonder drugs or magic bullets. The legit ones, on the other hand, are very helpful when it comes to their specific medicinal benefits. For example, the herbal supplements for diabetes, like Ampalaya Plus, truly assists the body in normalizing its blood sugar level.
2. Vitamins Can Help and Prevent
While supplements can help a person recuperate or fight a health condition, they can’t assist in preventing it from developing in the first place. This is where vitamins enter. Unlike supplements, vitamins can help fight complications and aid in preventing them. Aside from helping you prevent and fight complications, there are also a ton of medicinal benefits that you can get from vitamins. For example, Vitamin A is a powerful antioxidant, B Vitamins are important for your metabolism, Vitamin C helps grow and repair body tissues, etc.
3. More than One Vitamin in a Supplement
Vitamin supplements can also be taken if you’re not getting the vitamins you need from natural sources such as fruits and vegetables. These supplements, also called multivitamins, should be taken by people at risk for several vitamin and nutrient deficiencies. Also, if you have a lower income, taking a multivitamin supplement is ideal because it saves you from buying a variety of food needed to have the complete vitamins and nutrients requirement.
4. A Supplement Can’t be a Vitamin
For starters, a supplement is made up of premium plant concentrates from herbs, vegetables, or fruits that have known medicinal qualities. Sure, there might be vitamins in those plants, but then the useful parts of those plants like momordicin in the bitter gourd, is the one that truly matters. The other vitamins and minerals that the vegetables, herbs, and fruits have are just added bonuses. The parts that are needed, the ones that make these supplements very helpful, are what really matter and not the at times negligible amount of other nutrients in the plant components of the supplements.
5. Regulation Is Not the Same
When we say, “not the same,” it doesn’t mean that government regulation of supplements is somewhat lax compared to the regulation that all medication regularly faces. It’s just different. Since supplements are not recognized as medicine and whose boxes are peppered with so much disclaimers, they are considered “safe until proven” otherwise. For medication, they are considered “unsafe until proven.” The only way they can be labeled safe is for them to undergo clinical trials and then substantially prove that they are safe and are able to treat the condition/disease they are targeting.
A Question of Need
The number of available choices for you shouldn’t be daunting if you know what you need. Narrowing your choices for vitamins or supplements into the area where you think you need the most improvement is very important and might save you from wasting your money on health supplements that you don’t need. Coordinate with your doctor about this endeavor so that they can point you to the right direction. You wouldn’t want to just create very expensive urine, right?
