Food supplements: necessity or nonsense?

Do you follow combat sports on social media? Then you probably see a lot of advertising for food supplements. Nutrition expert Dr Samefko Ludidi on the sense and nonsense of pills, powders, shakes and bars.

You can picture your needs as a pyramid. The base determines 95% of your health. It consists of four elements: routine, food, exercise and rest. If you have these in order, you actually do not need supplements. A supplement can add something for that last five per cent, but you will understand that it is pointless to look for gains there while the base is not yet in place. Almost nobody has that 95% in order. Anyone who focuses on it can therefore make greater gains.

Most athletes can improve themselves by eating more healthily and sleeping better. But a supplement seems easier. Marketing plays on that. And if you use supplements endorsed by the best fighters in the world, you get the feeling that you are being professional yourself. But those athletes are paid to say they use those products. Whether they actually do is another question.

Sometimes a supplement is useful, but then we are talking about exceptions. The most important is vitamin D. If you take in too little of it, your immune system weakens. You become more susceptible to flu, for instance. Vitamin D is produced by your body from sunlight. But there is not a great deal of sun in the Netherlands. Certainly not in winter. And if you also stay indoors a lot because you have to work or study, it is sensible to take vitamin D from October to April. Certainly if you have darker skin, because then you are more sensitive to a lack of sunlight.

If you eat a vegan diet, you often have a shortage of vitamins A and B12. They are, however, important for your metabolism. With a deficiency you burn energy less well or your nervous system functions less well. If you eat vegan on a structural basis, it is good to supplement A and B12.

That is really where the usefulness of supplements ends. A lot of nonsense is sold, however. The most popular substances in powders, pills, shakes and bars are creatine and protein. If you have your base in order, you eat enough good meat. Then you take in enough creatine and protein.

We also see so-called pre workout boosters more and more often. A waste of your money. Just have an extra cup of coffee if you need to get going. After training, athletes often reach for a sports drink ‘for recovery’. The idea is to ‘replenish electrolytes’. That is simply an expensive word for salt. There is enough of that in your food, if you have the 95% in order.

An alternative to artificial supplements would be ‘superfoods’. That is food with a high nutritional value. The label is, however, mainly used to sell certain expensive nuts and exotic grains. If you peel away the hype, you see that the real superfoods are simply fruit, eggs, fish, meat and vegetables. If you eat these in generous quantities, you do more for your sporting body than by eating an extra handful of expensive nuts, or grains that have been flown halfway around the world.

The biggest nonsense is found in energy drinks sold in flashy cans. They are usually shots of caffeine, but they also contain extra sugar and often bioactive substances such as guarana and ginseng. It is above all a cocktail of fast-acting substances. But the body processes that boost very quickly as well, and an energy dip follows. Then you want another shot. And so you keep yo-yoing and spending money. Better to eat normally and drink a cup of coffee; then your energy level stays steady and your money stays in your pocket.

So my advice is: focus on the basics and let the hypes pass you by. Better for your wallet and for your health!