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Submitted by: Billy Henders
Can a natural health care product really be an effective alternative to conventional medicine?
When faced with an illness or preventing one, doctors have an array of options to them. One of them is to recommend the use of over the counter medication, especially in more severe cases.
Sadly, some of these drugs are quite expensive and since people cannot always afford the medication, or perhaps they would actively prefer a more natural approach to healing, then alternative techniques are sometimes turned to.
Generally alternative health products are dietary or supplement related, and this article does not look at the myriad other alternative health treatments available like, Reiki, acupuncture and meditation.
Everyone knows what dieting is. There are few people in the western world that have not been on a diet or restricted certain foods for one reason or another. More recently there have been a number of diets that restricts one type of food to replace it with another. A good example of this is eating food that is high in protein and fat rather than those rich in carbohydrates.
In more recent times, as the medical community started to understand the impact of a lack of certain dietary essentials, they started to encourage changes to the populations diet.
Supplements have changed over the years, from being a way of adding essential nutrients when a person was lacking, to helping with numerous conditions like lowering cholesterol, gaining or losing weight, enhancing one’s sex drive and treating anxiety disorder.
Did you know that many of the herbal extracts, herbal teas and the supplements we see on the shelves of our health stores have been used for centuries by traditional healers?
The Food and Drugs Administration or FDA oversees manufacturing, safety, and product information, which include the claims a dietary supplement can make. Although the standards are not as strict compared to those given to drugs.
So, a dietary supplement labeled as a treatment for a disease or condition would be thought of as unauthorized, and so illegal. This is generally because clinical trials have not been carried out to prove the claims.
It is important that if you are considering taking supplements together with other medication you consult with your physician. The ingredients in both may interact, or cause the medication to work less effectively, or indeed too effectively.
But the advice to anyone who wants to stay fit and healthy is simple.
1. Have a long hard look at your diet and ask yourself if you are getting enough fruit and vegetables (preferably raw of lightly cooked), protein, carbohydrates and fiber and keeping the amount of processed foods, sugar and salt to a sensible level.
2. Are you exercising every week, and are you doing it for long enough and vigorously enough?
3. Combat stresses in your life by planning ahead.
There are many that suggest that all you need is a good diet to keep healthy, and although their point is fair, a good diet is getting harder and harder for people to maintain.
The pace of life is hectic at the best of times, and often being able to squeeze in the preparation and time to eat a healthy meal is not seen as possible. When this is the case essential nutrients can be missed from the diet as we rely more and more on quick and easy processed foods. This is when the use of a natural health care product like a dietary supplement may be advisable to bolster any deficiencies in the diet.
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