Why I don't take dietary supplements

#Health

I don’t take dietary supplements for a few reasons.

The human body is a biochemical reactor. A complex melting pot where countless reactions take place simultaneously. It constantly seeks a balanced state, known as homeostasis, where every process aligns with the body’s overall behavior. In simple terms, it tries to match supply with demand and compensate for deficiencies on its own.

When we take supplements, we either make no real impact on these processes or we actually do and that’s where it gets complicated.

In fact, many dietary supplements have never demonstrated any measurable effect beyond placebo. And for the few that do show an effect, we cannot be 100% sure that we understand what we are doing for many reasons, including insufficient long-term randomized trials.

Whenever we attempt to “tune” a specific chemical process, we inevitably influence many others. The body’s biochemistry is non-linear. It's a network of interrelated chemical processes – feedback loops where a single adjustment may trigger a cascade of compensatory reactions, some of which may be under-researched or poorly understood.

The outcome can vary: sometimes there’s only a temporary benefit; sometimes the effect persists but bounces back once you stop; and sometimes it leads to unintended risks of disease emerging in unexpected ways. For example, large trials of antioxidant supplements once thought protective against cancer later showed neutral or even harmful effects.

So my point is simple: don’t mess with a complex self-balancing system unless you have strong evidence that it’s failing.

If I really want to “tweak” the body, I do it through behavioural interventions. Better sleep, nutrition, movement, and stress management. These approaches nudge the internal adaptation mechanisms in the right direction and shift the biochemistry in the most natural way with sustainable results that lasting habits can lock in.