Right now, you are living in a golden age of health supplements that can make an immediate positive impact on your life. Regardless of your age, gender, or body type, there is likely a supplement available that can help you reach your desired health goals and bring about a higher quality of life.
In the USA, 77% of adults regularly take supplements and there’s solid reasoning behind this strong majority. Supplements reinforce our body with nutrients that might be lacking in our daily diet and can provide our minds with everything from more energy to stress relief.
As there is an almost overwhelming amount of available choices, it can be helpful to divide supplements into the following three categories based on the need they address:
- Heart Supplements
- Gut Health Supplements
- Brain Supplements
After taking the time to understand the benefits of each product type, you can then integrate them into your daily life by finding a community pharmacy near you to pick up the products that best fit your needs.
Why Heart Supplements Work
It’s common knowledge that heart disease is the leading cause of death among adults in the USA. While diet and exercise can do much to alleviate this health risk, it never hurts to give your cardiovascular system additional support with specialized heart supplements.
A high-quality multivitamin is a solid place to start, as they provide a wide assortment of nutrients that can fill in the holes that an unbalanced diet leaves, especially since our foods do not contain as many nutrients as they used to. For additional support, look to supplements that contain Omega-3 fatty acids, which are most commonly found in products like fish oil. This compound is not naturally produced in the body, and regular intake has been linked to lowering the risk of chronic heart failure and inflammation.
Other ingredients to keep an eye out for with heart supplements are:
- Magnesium
- Fiber
- Vitamin D
- Coenzyme Q10
- Red rice yeast
- L-carnitine
For those who are especially concerned with their heart’s health, it’s helpful to avoid products that contain excessive amounts of caffeine or choline. These chemicals can place additional stress upon the heart and potentially lead to harmful blockage.
If there’s one organ you don’t want to shortchange in the body, it’s the heart. Take preventative measures now to ensure a high level of health and enjoy a cardiovascular system that will hum along for years to come.
Getting into Gut Health Supplements
Gut health supplement popularity has skyrocketed in recent years as people have become more attuned to their body’s unique natural rhythms.
Gut health is much more than keeping a “regular” digestive system. The gastrointestinal tract is our largest system in constant contact with the outside world, starting from mouth to end. The gut is constantly scanning everything you consume, and differentiating friend or foe to absorb or calling the immune system to attack. For optimal health, you need an intact digestive lining with plenty of good bacteria to help digest food, absorb nutrients, and crowd out bad bacteria.
Having a healthy digestive system makes a world of difference to the quality of a person’s life. Taking the extra time to understand gut health on a deeper level and then matching your needs with available products can reduce issues like inflammation, constipation, and risk for chronic disease.
The all-star of the gut health supplement world is undoubtedly probiotics, which can be best understood as friendly bacteria that help balance out the natural microbiome that exists in our stomach. Probiotics help keep digestion in a natural rhythm and fight off harmful bacteria that lead to gut-related health issues. These healthy bacteria are naturally found in fermented food such as kimchi, sauerkraut, kefir, tempeh, kombucha, and yogurt.
However, for those with dietary restrictions (or those who simply favor other foods), it’s possible to gain the positive effects of probiotics without actually consuming any of these foods.
When searching for your next natural gut health supplements, look to see if they include the following probiotic ingredients:
- Lactobacillus rhamnosus
- Bifidobacterium infantis
- Saccharomyces boulardii
Gut health supplements that contain these ingredients can help soothe a sensitive stomach and raise the overall health of the gut. Ask your local community pharmacy about their current probiotic and general gut health supplement selection, and we will have several recommendations that can help balance out any diet.
Bring Brain Supplements into your Routine
While maintaining a healthy heart and gut with supplements is certainly important, one obviously can never overstate the importance of cognitive health.
There’s no single better way to protect and enhance our mental faculties than through brain supplements, a market that has exploded in recent years with a 70% annual increase in selection. These kinds of brain supplements are commonly referred to as nootropics and they provide additional naturally occurring chemicals to boost mental facilities.
Our brain chemistry doesn’t just affect how we physically feel day-to-day. It also plays a significant role in mood and general energy level. Giving our nervous system the right tools to operate at optimal levels yields all kinds of benefits from improved focus, memory retention, and reduced stress levels.
When searching for nootropic supplement support, keep an eye out for these key ingredients which are proven to be effective and safe for general consumption:
- L-theanine
- B vitamins
- Vitamin E
- Ginseng
- Magnesium
With brain supplements, it can be helpful to experiment with a few different types until you find one that brings you mentally to a state that serves your needs. Once you’ve found a product that fits, the key then is to keep a steady pattern with what and when you consume the nootropics.
This idea of creating a supplement routine isn’t limited to cognitive support either. With all health supplements, the most significant benefits occur after weeks or even months of routine usage.
Find Your Health Supplements Rhythm
Whether they are heart, gut, or brain-related health supplements, you may start to see and feel results as soon as a few days. However, if you want to keep this positive change going, then it requires consistency in application for the changes to root deeply within the body and become the new baseline of health.
There’s almost an overabundance of selection and information available right now, and it can be difficult at times to discern the best path forward for your body. By doing a little research and testing the waters, you are almost guaranteed to find a product that can help you in your day-to-day life.
Contact or visit your local Community pharmacy with any health supplement inquiries, and our educated staff will be delighted to point you in the right direction.