Snake oils in the supplement industry and 6 ways to protect yourself!

In this article I will talk about snake oils in the supplement industry and what you need to do to protect yourself from the greed of this beast. If you have been reading this blog for a while, I hope you have come to understand the importance of supplements for improving health and body composition.
According to an article, the sports supplements industry is expected to reach US$6.17 billion by 2018 due to the increase of supplement demands and people’s increasing occupation with sports related activities.
As you understand, it is a very lucrative industry and just like with all multibillion industries, this also has a couple of skeletons in its closet.
What is a snake oil or golden pill?
You see, this industry is making money out of people’s assumptions that taking 1 (or 20) supplements will help them reach their target faster. This is the concept of the golden pill or snake oil.
In the Old American West, people used to sell tonics or other weird concoctions by claiming it would cure diseases and ailments in the same way that the Chinese medicine ‘snake oil’ used to do. The original snake oil medicine brought by the Chinese to the US, is made from the oil of the water snake which is high in omega3s which can lower inflammation. Chinese workers used to rub this on their joints to recover from the hardship of their work and soon enough they shared this secret (or were forced to) with their American counterparts.
Coming back to the ‘faux’ snake oil tonic, the innocent clients bought this tonic from indecent and ‘quacky’ non-Chinese who wanted to benefit from people’s hope and pain, only to soon find out that the tonic didn’t do anything for them or their condition.
Are there snake oils in the supplement company?
Of course there are.
Just like with all things that can be used to make money, the supplement industry has both a good and a bad side.
The good side is, that supplements that can really benefit one’s health are constantly being available to the market. If you do your research or consult a nutritionist or supplement expert, you can really optimize your progress and health by using very cheap and very simple ingredients and supplements.
The bad side is that they tend to sell a lot of garbage as well (a.k.a snake oil supplements). After politics and the food industry, the supplement industry is perhaps the most overhyped, filled with over the top marketing claims that could make a blind man hope that he can see again after taking ‘the new and improved formula’.
Here are 4 things that you need to understand about supplements:
1. There is no golden pill
The ability to grow or repair is already embedded within your DNA. If you are fully healthy, the supps will only add 5–10% more to your existing ability and that’s it.
If you are not healthy however, supps can improve your health by even 50% in a matter of months.
2. Knowledge is power
If you don’t know what you are putting in your body, how it works and how much you should take and for how long, you are setting yourself up for failure, a broken bank and a broken body. You can do irreversible damage to yourself if you exceed the dose that is appropriate for you (which may or may not match the recommended dose on the label) or if you have a condition and you take something that it not recommended for your situation.
This is where experts come in. Taking advice from the internet can only take you so far and it’s always very risky.
3. Not all supplements work for all people in the same way
There are responders and non-responders. Responders are those who respond well to a supplement, and non-responders are the people who do not get any response from taking the same supplement.
Non-responders are always hasty into reaching conclusions about a supplement by claiming ‘it doesn’t work’. Those who actually have been in the fitness world for some time, actually say “it didn’t work for ME”, which is a better placement.
The other thing you can do is experiment. How will you know if something works for you or not? However, doing so should be done only after consulting your physician and making sure you do not have any contraindications or medical situations that would oppose the usage of the specific protocol.
Other things that are equally serious, are the activation dose (the dose which works for you), the timing of the supplement (when you should take it) and cycling — if applicable (if you should take it for a while and then take 1–4 weeks off to maximize its potential).
4. You still need to work for it
You still need to have a solid nutritional and training program in place in order to make any gains.
I think this is common sense but I am putting it here just in case you missed it.
But how can you make the best out of the supplements that are available to you and not spend tons of $ trying stuff that don’t work?
6 ways to protect yourself and your health
Here are a couple of guidelines to make sure you are still supporting the good side of the supplement industry and avoiding snake oils:
1) Avoid supplements that are overly expensive
Yes, you do get what you pay for but there are a lot of overhyped products which actually do nothing.
Such was always the case of calcium where people were paying to take chalk pills.
I remember when ZMA first came out it was ridiculously expensive (10–20$ per bottle) while you could buy Zinc and Magnesium separately which each cost a fraction of the price (5$ for a bottle with double the quantity of pills).
2) Research supplements
It is your responsibility to learn about how each supplement works before buying something expensive that doesn’t work!
Other overhyped products are those G.H boosters that actually are expensive amino acids. G.H is made up of a complicated and very specific chain of amino acids. It is not as easy to construct and made into a supplement and even if that is the case, you will still not have proper absorption from it, if you take it orally.
3) Use them correctly
Read the rest of the article here!
http://stronghealthyandfree.com/snake-oils-in-the-supplement-industry
by Nick Sigma CWC, EH, E-YRT200
If you enjoyed this article take a moment to share it with the ones you love or care about. You can find many more articles on my official website StrongHealthyAndFree.com. If you want to stay up to date with my latest posts, make sure you follow/add me on Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and Youtube.


