Powders and Pills - Supplements Exposed

Are you addicted to morphine?  Perhaps suffering from impotence?  Then have I got the thing for you!  No longer marketed as a cure-all, it is still sold on the market today and you can easily purchase it.  In fact you have probably had some in the past few days.  It cures tons of ailments and you don’t need a prescription!  What supplement could cure a morphine addiction and erectile dysfunction simultaneously?  Coca-Cola silly.  In the past 120 years we have determined that the popular soft drink doesn’t do either of those things, nor does it cure most of the original ailments it claimed.  Fast forward to 2011.  Which supplements work?  Which ones have been proven through scientific studies to be effective?  Which ones have been crowned as supplement kings due to media hype?  We’ll take a look at a few supplements below.  More specifically what they are purported to do and if it has been documented that there are beneficial results or not.  First we are going to look at a natural supplement that is reported to lessen the dark cloudiness of depression.
If we were able to somehow gauge the worth of a supplement in a cost vs. effectiveness measurement, St. John’s wort would be a difficult one to beat in value.  You can get it at just about any drugstore and it is inexpensive.  In clinical studies researchers found that St. Johns wort was at least as effective as a prescription drug in treating the symptoms of depression.  It also only had approximately half of the side effects as the same commercial medicine.  Scientists currently are conducting tests in order to determine if this supplement will lessen the severity of some diseases such as Parkinson’s, alcoholism, and pms.  Yes, I wrote pms is a disease.  If you are looking for a natural method to simply increase your general sense of wellbeing, St. John’s wort would be an extremely worthwhile supplement to invest in.  Moving on, instead of a supplement that helps with your emotional balance, the next one to be discussed improves both your physical conditioning and your mental prowess.
Creatine was discovered before the Coca-Cola syrup, in the 1830’s.  Currently the main supporters of creatine monohydrate are athletes as it has been demonstrated to help with the building of lean muscle mass due to an improved conversion of energy at the cellular level.  However this affordable supplement has been shown to be much more beneficial to several other aspects of your health.  One example would be an increase in working memory and intelligence; another would be the reduction of mental fatigue.  It may reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease or stave off the debilitating effects of ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.  Your body produces some creatine naturally and it can also be found in various sources of meat.  Your body only produces enough for what you currently need.  By supplementing, you are saturating your cells with standby, ready to use creatine.  This creatine is just waiting in your muscles to be used for energy transfer.  The list of benefits of taking creatine is pretty long.  Unlike creatine monohydrate and St. John’s wort, there used to be a lot of hype surrounding glucosamine.
If you do some internet searching you will find several online retailers selling glucosamine.  Most of the descriptions include a passage about joint health, or easing/delaying the pain of arthritis.  Lately there has been a little rumbling that the public jury is now out on the benefits of glucosamine.  A study conducted in 2009 reports no such connection between joint preservation/healing and glucosamine.  The abstract summary of the testing actually ends with “compared with placebo glucosamine does not reduce joint pain or have an impact on narrowing joint space.”  Forget about me citing the Author’s of the test properly, it was performed by the Institute of Social and Preventative Medicine at the University of Bern and was entitled “Effects of Glucosamine, Chondroitin, or Placebo in Patients with osteoarthritis of hip or knee.”  The purpose of this paragraph was not to disregard the supplement but rather to demonstrate that some supplements are more effective at being promoted as a cure-all like Coca-Cola rather that healing or curing.
The world of supplements can be overwhelming.  Commercials for this, a gym friend recommends that.  An important thing to remember regarding supplements is to do your own research.  If a trusted friend suggests one, give it a shot.  If you are taking glucosamine and experiencing terrific results, keep taking it.  Every single body is different, what works for one may not for another.  Very few people, like one out of ten, don’t feel the results from creatine.  The difference is, both St. John’s wort and creatine monohydrate have been proven through testing that they work or help your body in some way.  Keep this idea in your head as you shop for supplements.  Good luck!  Eat right and train smartly.