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Nutritional supplements can help you out if your diet isn’t up to par or if your body needs a little something extra. Some nutrient deficiencies are identifiable by specific symptoms, while others aren’t. This makes it challenging to pinpoint whether your supplements are doing the job or if you need to adjust the dosage.
Stay on top of your game and see if your supplements are working. Read on to find out how.
Monitor Your Symptoms
The first step in determining supplement effectiveness is to keep a notebook to record how you’re feeling. This will help you track progress and symptoms.
Start before taking your supplements, and document day-to-day development, including:
- Energy levels
- Negative symptoms
- Sleep quality
- Mood
This also helps determine if your supplement makes you worse or gives you side effects you don't want to deal with.
For some symptoms, simply looking in the mirror can help. For example, if you’re taking vitamin E to improve hair quality, you should notice a visible improvement after 2 to 12 weeks. If you’re engaged in athletic activity, you should also monitor your performance.
Take into consideration other lifestyle changes at the same time. Changes in diet, the weather, or even lifestyle changes like moving into a new house can also result in symptoms abating. The key to accurate symptom monitoring is being consistent with it and recognizing all factors affecting your performance and drive.
Visit Your Doctor
Some deficiencies are best detected by blood work. In this case, your doctor will give you a timeframe when you should visit to measure your vitamin/nutrient levels.
Your doctor might recommend a blood, urine, or saliva test—or something more complicated, like an organic acids profile—based on the supplement you’re taking. These types of tests can help work out exactly what you’re deficient in but are not always covered by insurance.
Depending on the results, your doctor may recommend you decrease or increase your dosages. Your doctor may also recommend you make the switch to a new supplement or stop taking the supplement altogether.
Visit your doctor and monitor your symptoms on your own to get the best picture of whether your supplements are effective. Objective testing can catch discrepancies that don't have symptoms, and monitoring symptoms can indicate a problem even if your blood work looks fine.
Why Your Supplements Might Not Work
There are two primary reasons why your supplements might not work, assuming objective testing has shown a real deficiency.
The first is that you aren't taking your supplements in the right form. Some people can't absorb vitamins from pills and need to take liquids. Others find that they have enough difficulty swallowing pills and capsules that they don't comply with the regimen—in which case soft gels or gummies might be more suitable. You might also be taking the wrong type of supplement. For example, you may be taking vitamin D when it would be better to take vitamin D3.
Another reason your supplements aren’t working is that you aren't taking quality supplements. Make sure that you get your supplements from a reputable company. The FDA doesn’t regulate supplements, so some companies don't produce good supplements. For instance, the dosage might not be what it says on the bottle, or the ingredients are sourced from questionable manufacturers. Avoid supermarket and drug store supplements, which tend to be of lower quality. Instead, choose Mdrive.
The search for a reputable supplement company is over. Choose Mdrive, the leading provider of everyday supplements to fuel your drive. Our supplements are crafted using effective, safe ingredients from premium sources. We test each supplement ourselves to ensure that it will work the way we intend it to.
Our wide variety of supplements helps men all over the country feel their best and be their best. Take our supplement quiz to see which one is best for you, or browse through our collections to find what you need.