Healthy Supplements

There are very few supplements by themselves. For the majority of supplements, they need to be consumed in conjunction with a nutritionally balanced meal. This includes most of the vitamins and minerals people take. It usually says in the instructions that the supplements are to be consumed with a meal or with food and water. People ignore this at their own peril. For example, taking a large dose of niacin alone may be harmful by using up the available methyl groups and preventing normal methylation, but be really helpful when taken with healthy meal to lower cholesterol, etc. Likewise, chromium when taken alone can damage DNA and generate free radicals, but when take with a balanced healthy meal can have healthful benefits as is evidenced by the lowering of hemoglobin A1c levels, etc. Even vitamin C which is usually thought of as an antioxidant produced oxidative byproducts which are one of the chief causes of damage to the cornea. In short, most supplements must be taken in conjunction with a nutritional balanced, healthy meal in order to provide the desired effects.