Deborah Jeffery: Hello, my name is Deborah Jeffery. I am a registered licensed dietitian. Today's video would be about understanding dietary supplements for men and women. We are going to discuss commonness, conceptions about the supplements, who might benefit from taking supplements, what common vitamins and minerals are missing from the diets of men and women that they could use dietary supplements, how to select the supplements, what information is provided on the label and then we are also going to talk about Herbals and Botanical supplements. So, what is a Dietary Supplement? A dietary supplement is something that's designed to be taking by mouth, that will supplement the diet. It covers a wide variety of things; vitamins, minerals, herbals, botanicals, extracts, enzymes, hormones, those are all considered dietary supplements. There are over 30,000 types of supplements on the market and each year more comes out. The vast majority of those are vitamins and minerals. Vitamins and minerals are considered "micro-nutrients" and we are going to cover those, because of the wide topic. We are going to narrow it down to vitamins, minerals, Herbals and Botanicals. A micro-nutrient is something that your body needs for normal health, growth and function but your body can't produce the micro-nutrients. So it needs to get it either through the diet or dietary supplements. Now supplements are rather a controversial issue. Because it has never been proven that a healthy adult can benefit from supplements that would protect them from disease or infection, but the general thinking is that supplements taken in proper amounts are not harmful. Sometimes physicians will recommend that their patients take supplements because they generally consider them to be safe it they are taking in proper amount, that they are convenient, they are not necessarily expensive. So they are used as a safety net, if people don't eat properly. But all medical professionals would agree that dietary supplements cannot substitute for a healthy diet.

I am a registered licensed Dietitian. I have been in the field of nutrition for over 20 years. I currently work as a Director of Nutrition Services for Mind-Shape. We counsel clients on weight loss and wellness and we are located in Arlington, Virginia. So let's get started learning about supplements.