dietary supplements

Provides ways to naturally find vitamins, minerals, and other supplements while covering which foods and herbs are best for cognition and memory, immunity, energy, and more.

"This accessibly written book examines the most commonly taken dietary supplements, exploring what they are and what they're purported to do and summarizing key research findings regarding their potential health benefits and risks"--Provided by publisher.

"Food is a vital part of fitness. Everything you eat affects your body in some way, so it's important to make the right choices when it comes to the things you eat. Discover the real facts about dietary supplements that can add to a lifestyle of exercise and eating right. Find out how choosing nutritious, healthy foods today can help you avoid the problems many people face as they get older. Learn how your diet affects your fitness, weight, and overall health!"--Back cover.

"The startling story of America's devotion to vitamins-and how it keeps us from good health Health-conscious Americans seek out vitamins any way they can, whether in a morning glass of orange juice, a piece of vitamin-enriched bread, or a daily multivitamin. We believe that vitamins are always beneficial and that the more we can get, the better-and yet despite this familiarity, few of us could explain what vitamins actually are. Instead, we outsource our questions to experts and interpret "vitamin" as shorthand for "health." What we don't realize-and what Vitamania reveals-is that the experts themselves are surprisingly short on answers. Yes, we need vitamins; without them, we would die. Yet despite a century of scientific research (the word "vitamin" was coined only in 1912), there is little consensus around even the simplest of questions, whether it's exactly how much we each require or what these thirteen dietary chemicals actually do. The one thing that experts do agree upon is that the best way to get our nutrients is in the foods that naturally contain them, which have countless chemicals beyond vitamins that may be beneficial. But thanks to our love of processed foods (whose natural vitamins and other chemicals have often been removed or destroyed), this is exactly what most of us are not doing. Instead, we allow marketers to use the addition of synthetic vitamins to blind us to what else in food we might be missing, leading us to accept as healthy products that we might (and should) otherwise reject. Grounded in history-but firmly oriented toward the future-Vitamania reveals the surprising story of how our embrace of vitamins led to today's Wild West of dietary supplements and investigates the complicated psychological relationship we've developed with these thirteen mysterious chemicals. In so doing, Vitamania both demolishes many of our society's most cherished myths about nutrition and challenges us to reevaluate our own beliefs. Impressively researched, counterintuitive, and engaging, Vitamania won't just change the way you think about vitamins. It will change the way you think about food. "--.

This title addresses controversies related to dietary supplements, including: how should dietary supplements be regulated; are vitamin and mineral supplements beneficial; are weight-loss supplements and athletic supplements beneficial; how well do supplements treat different medical conditions.

The author examines the multi-million-dollar herbal supplement industry, the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, and the inadequate regulations that render the FDA helpless at putting an end to dangerous dietary supplements.

Answers questions about the benefits of dietary supplements and performance enhancing drugs and discusses claims made by the supplement industry which is not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.

Rates the effectiveness and safety of more than 300 natural substances. Each alphabetically arranged listing includes information about the substance's common forms, medical benefits, side effects, and dangers.