Supplements Worth Taking

The annual sales of supplements surpasses the $25bn in the USA alone, and you probablytake one - or more than one - every day.

Some quick facts about supplements:

* In 2004, 18.9 percent of Americans reported that they had taken one or more dietary supplements in the past year. (Institute of Medicine)

* The global self-medication market grew 7.4 percent in 1998 – dietary supplements were the fastest growing category with a 16 percent increase. (IMS HEALTH, 1999)

* The United States leads the world in dietary supplement usage with 100.4 million Americans using vitamin and minerals every day and 37.2 million using herbal remedies regularly. (Prevention Magazine, 2000)

* The most prevalent reason consumers use dietary supplements is to improve overall health and general well being. (Roper Starch Worldwide, 2001)

* The top selling herbal supplements in the U.S. in 2000 were the three Gs: garlic, ginkgo biloba, and glucosamine. (Information Resources, 2001)

It's easy to be convinced to take supplements, specially if you practice sports, because actually you'll really need some depending on how healthy are your meal intakes everyday. The question is: how much of evidence there are about their effectiveness?

I've found this data visualization study on the Internet which I think is a great guide, supposedly to be updated constantly (seems to be the case because the still image differs from the dynamically generated one). The higher a bubble is, the greater the evidence for its effectiveness. But the supplements are only effective for the conditions listed inside the bubble. Bubbles' sizes relate to their popularity in the Internet. The author also use colors to separate supplements into groups.

Since supplements can eat part of your budgets, it seems wise to avoid those on the bottom of the image. Surprisingly enough, vitamin E is there!