Are Supplements a Requirement for Good Health

Recently I attended another "functional medicine" seminar. Functional medicine (FM) differs from the mainstream in that it focuses on the individual variations of metabolic pathways across systems. For example, instead of looking at just gut health, it examines how your gut interacts with your brain, liver, hormones, immune function, etc. It is fascinating science, and yet it frustrates me in that the FM answer to everything seems to be some sort of supplement. It feels profoundly disturbing that in taking away 5 pharmaceuticals, 10 nutraceuticals might be added. Are supplements now essential for health?

The underlying messages bother me.

How did we get into the habit of classifying stuff in capsules as "natural" and consider them "food"? Nutrients are not food. Herbal extracts are not food. Things like fresh vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and, yes, meat, fish, poultry are food. Think back to the Paleolithic diet. The human body is designed to eat food to sustain health; not pills and potions.

Granted, our bodies have so long suffered the deficiencies of the Standard American Diet, that getting back to a healthy state probably does require supplementation. Yet, to think that we will forever be required to swallow pills or potions to create health, to me, means our society has seriously failed. Yes, our food supply has changed. Instead of just accepting this as a fact of life, we must demand that food be what it is meant to be -- nutritious and wholesome. I firmly believe we must get back to the business of eating; not pill-swallowing. Wouldn't you rather spend an extra $100 per month on organic food than pay $200 per month on supplements? Yes, let us use supplements as part of a transition -- yet let us sustain health the way it was meant to be -- with good food, fresh air, pure water, and active lifestyle.

We vote with our food dollars, and the market responds. I ask everyone to please continue to the push for cleaner, more nutritious, better quality food. Let our daily choices take the path by which the Standard American Diet will no longer be "SAD." And I promise you, as Your Lifestyle Doctor, I will continue to work on your behalf to help create a future in which a healthy lifestyle is all you need to Achieve Health Now!