The wellness industry has been growing rapidly in the last few years because of consumers’ focus on good health. In many ways it is like the Wild West, since there is only modest regulation in manufacturing practices and even less regulation of the claims people make regarding the health benefits of supplements.
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The wellness industry has been growing rapidly in the last few years because of consumers’ focus on good health. In many ways it is like the Wild West, since there is only modest regulation in manufacturing practices and even less regulation of the claims people make regarding the health benefits of supplements.
The number and variance of opinions is too much for professionals to grasp, let alone the average consumer.
Related: Nutritional Supplements on the Rise
Over the last 10 years, I have provided medical advice on thousands of cases online that allowed me to track the effects of supplement routines on skin and health. From this information, I have found a correlation between supplements, health conditions and skin eruptions that will be discussed in this article.
Antioxidants
Medical schools provide very little education on supplements, and this often leads to consumers surfing the internet to find an advocate they trust on this issue. One of the most consistent realities of taking wellness products is that they do not cause obvious or visible effects, so we have to assume that it is good for us.
For example, almost everyone thinks antioxidants are vital to prolonging or improving our health, yet we don’t really know if they are achieving that goal. In fact, a large clinical trial on megadoses found them to be harmful.
What does an antioxidant do? It squelches free radical activity in the body. While most people think these oxygen free radicals are bad, most are made carefully to keep our body (and immune system) functioning properly.
When you take a lot of antioxidants, you can slow this healthy activity; more importantly, you may slow your body’s ability to fight viruses and other infections.
In my opinion, people should not take vitamin C when they have a cold or infection, and they should never take large amounts of vitamins C or E, based on the clinical trial and my reasoning above. I recommend a max of 250 mg/day of vitamin C.
Probiotics
Another popular supplement category is probiotics. Everyone recommends taking probiotics because, after all, they are the good gut bacteria.
Let us start with the long-held fallacy that our microbiome originated from the foods we ate in the first two years of life. Science has shown that our gut bacteria are exotic and highly diverse. Less than a handful of the roughly 10,000 strains in our guts are in foods thought to benefit our microbiome (kimchi, yogurt, etc.). Baby food rarely contains any strains and the ones from a mother’s breast milk do not match with their infant.
So how do we develop our microbiome? Our DNA. The human body contains about 1 trillion cells, and 60% of those are bacteria. These bugs are able to maintain our health with remarkable precision. This could only be possible if our DNA is directing their development.
This means that when you take probiotics, you are adding bacteria that may not be right for you. I have seen many cases where a probiotic supplement led to excess candida and/or H. Pylori. Candida often presents as acne in the upper/midface, and H. Pylori presents as redness around the nostrils.
Both of these also cause digestive issues over time. It can be a confusing picture, as many who suffer with constipation think the probiotic helped their gut health when really the harm it caused created loose stools rather than a correction.
The answer for gut health is prebiotics, which feed the restoration of your individual good bacteria. Yet even prebiotics are misunderstood. Many recommend fermented foods, but the bacteria/yeast used to ferment foods are not part of the microbiome and thus cause distortions. Others think Inulin is good, but it can favor strains of lactobacillus that cause weight gain.
Yogurt is universally accepted as helpful, but it can increase mucus formation in the gut, potentially leading to enlarged pores, blackheads and more candida.
My favorite prebiotic is seabuckthorn oil, since it has the most complete omega profile and is a superfood with many studies showing varying health benefits.
Supplements and Skin Conditions
I have learned a lot about which supplements can cause skin conditions, as that is my area of focus.
One of the more surprising findings was pea protein. For some reason, an estrogenic preservative is added to 99% of the pea protein out there and this can causes people to develop acne near the outside of their chin.
Whey protein can lead to mucus formation in the gut, which causes candida acne and blackheads.
The most common mucus former supplement is magnesium citrate. Many magnesium supplements cause harm to the gut and/or liver, which is ironic because that is the main reason people recommend taking them.
The list of yeast-promoting supplements is long but includes popular choices like B12, ashwagandha, sea kelp/moss, collagen peptides and retinyl palmitate/acetate. Remember that candida is not only involved in acne; it is behind eczema, psoriasis, sebaceous hyperplasia and more.
Supplements and Health
There is so much money being wasted on supplements as well. People are convinced that fruit and vegetable powders, matcha, spirulina, maca and beet root (as examples) are really important in supporting health. I have determined that most of these supplements are unnecessary.
Related: 10 Trends That Support the Immune System
Sure, a smoothie with these is better than a sugary cereal for breakfast. However, if you are budgeting to restore your health, the most important and direct effects come from detoxing and strengthening your immunity.
For this reason, I recommend supplements that address our biggest challenges:
- DIM (to bind estrogen toxins)
- Trioxolane (to build viral/bacterial fighting capacity)
- Seabuckthorn (to restore the microbiome)
- Mullein leaf (to break apart mucus)
- Pyruvate (to power mitochondria)
- Alpha ketoglutarate (to enhance body repair activity)
The body was designed to function properly on a diet as simple as bread and water. It is very good at recycling itself. Supplementing plant and fruit extracts is often unnecessary.
The body makes its most important antioxidants on demand. Diseases are caused by exposures to things like carcinogens, pesticides, preservatves, etc. and our weakening ability to fight off viruses as we age. Worry less about cellular nutrients and more about preventing and removing these exposures and you will thrive.
Ben Johnson, MD, is a physician, inventor and entrepreneur who has spent the last 25 years dedicated to solving some of the world’s most challenging skin and health conditions. He holds multiple patents related to skin care and wellness as a result of his research and philosophies pertaining to the skin-body connection. Dr. Johnson founded Osmosis Beauty with a revolutionary approach that is changing the direction of skin care away from excessive exfoliation and renewing the focus of dermal remodeling, barrier and DNA repair, and detoxification.
