Before I jump into this topic, I want to be extremely clear on a couple things. First, I am not attempting to sell anything in this blog (either actually sell products or convert you to a way of thinking). This is just information I have collected over the years that I am sharing for those who have questions or interest. Second, I truly do not believe there is any “better” option. Your healing journey is yours and you need to make choices that make sense for you. Medication, therapy, mindfulness, supplements, diet changes, all of these options are simply tools. Only you really know what tools will work with your struggle or make sense to use in your life.

Now, onto the blog!

The Perception of Supplements

In the United States, it is illegal to state that a supplement treats, cures, mitigates, or prevents any disease, disease state, or even symptom of a disease. The term dietary supplement is intentionally used to make it quite clear that these products merely supplement the diet and are in no way medicinal. However, if you begin looking outside the U.S., where healthcare is less about money, you see a very different picture.

Canada is an excellent example. In Canada dietary supplements are referred to as Natural Health Products with a clear understanding and expectation that these products will be used to treat, cure, prevent, or mitigate disease. In fact, in Canada, if you want to legally sell a dietary supplement, you have to prove it is effective and safe through the use of research.

I am telling you this not to convince you of the effectiveness of supplements, but rather to help you see how perceptions of them can be affected by government policy. The reality is, that in the last few decades, more and more people have begun to use supplements to manage their health. While there are multiple reasons for this increased use, at least one of those reasons is that supplements can actually provide medicinal benefits.

Are Supplements as Effective as Medication

Whether supplements are effective as Western medications is a very difficult question to answer for many reasons. First, medicine is a money-making business in the U.S. Where there are profits to be had, they will be invested in research to prove the safety and efficacy of medicines for future sales to continue the cycle of profit. There is much less money to be made in supplements, especially in herbs which, in many areas, can be grown or foraged for free. This means there is often less research available.

Another issue in comparing effectiveness is that the research that is done is often driven by profit. So the studies being performed often use proprietary blends or specific preparations created by for-profit companies. Proprietary blends can differ greatly, so the preparation, dosages, and actual product tested can differ greatly.

For example, one study may use a raspberry leaf extract prepared through dry extraction process that has been standardized for a very specific component, while another study may simply use raspberry leaf tea and not specify dosage or exact preparation at all, and yet another study may use a raspberry tincture made from the berry. This makes it very difficult to compare across studies.

All of this means when you look at the research, you will find a lot of different results. There will be studies indicating that a certain supplement is more effective than prescribed medications and other studies indicating that the same supplement offers nothing more than the placebo effect.

Ultimately, I believe that supplements can be effective. But how they are prepared and from what they are made differs greatly and must be considered when reviewing research or choosing a supplement for personal use.

Are Supplements Safer than Medication

Many people seem to believe that supplements do not have side effects or risks associated with them, especially when compared to Western medicines. There are usually two main reasons for this erroneous belief. The first is that if a person believes a supplement is not really medicinal and doesn’t really do anything, then it is likely they will believe it is not going to have any negative effects either. It is simply a placebo.

The second reason for this is more research-based. Many of the research studies that examine the use of supplements often find that the tested supplement does not produce side effects or produces fewer interfering side effects than comparative medications. (Examples of this finding for Valerian, melatonin, Passionflower, and St. John’s Wort.)

Supplements often do have fewer negative side effects compared to traditional medications. I believe this is partially due to the fact that many supplements contain nutrients or components that our bodies already contain or need to function. Thus, our bodies are familiar with the chemicals we are putting into them. I also believe that many supplements, especially herbal ones that have not been concentrated, are easier for our bodies to process because they don’t have the concentrated, targeted punch that many medications do.

Risk Of Supplements

This does not mean, however, that supplements are without risk. Continuously taking a supplement your body does not need, or taking a supplement that is incompatible with your body, or that interacts with other medicines or supplements you are taking can have significant and sometimes deadly consequences.

Overdose

Amino acids, for example, are vital to the function of your body and some of them must be ingested as your body does not naturally make them. However, some research indicates that continuous ingestion of certain amino acid supplements may cause detrimental side effects.

While our bodies need certain nutrients and chemicals, we can also overdose on these chemicals. This may be, in part, why amino acids possibly cause adverse effects. We are intaking more than our bodies know what to do with.

A more clear example of a potential overdose comes in the form of iron. While iron is absolutely necessary for health, take too much and you will die. This is why it is a requirement in the U.S. that supplements containing over a certain amount of iron are required to have a childproof cap and carry a warning on the label to keep out of reach of children. As it takes a smaller amount to be deadly for children.

Negative & Paradoxical Reactions

As I said earlier, I truly believe that supplements do have medicinal effects. Just as taking the wrong medicine can have deleterious effects, so can taking the wrong supplement. For example, kelp is known to improve thyroid function. If you have hyperthyroidism (over-active thyroid), then it is probably not a good idea to take kelp as it could make the situation worse. There have even been a few case reports of kelp causing temporary hyperthyroidism in some people.

Yohimbine is the active component in yohimbe, which is used for erectile dysfunction and improved athletic performance among other things. Essentially, yohimbine helps to activate the adrenal response. Not surprisingly, then, when people with high anxiety who are prone to panic attacks take this supplement, they experience higher levels of anxiety and even panic attacks.

There are also a slew of supplements that affect hormones and reproductive health or can be transmitted through breast milk. There are many lists out there of herbs that should not be taken when pregnant or breastfeeding for this reason. Just like medications that should not be taken when pregnant, supplements that should not be taken while pregnant can threaten or terminate the pregnancy or possibly even cause birth defects.

Also, as with medications, a person can experience paradoxical effects with supplements. Paradoxical effects are essentially when the substance you take has the opposite of the intended effect. This typically is dependent on the person and how their body processes the substance. While these are less visible in the research, I personally have experienced these myself. B6 and B12, for example, are often recommended to help with anxiety and depression. When I take these vitamins, even at minimal doses, my anxiety skyrockets. They cause the opposite of the intended effect or the expected effect for me.

Interactions

Supplements can also interact with other supplements or with medications. This PDF link is for an outdated version of the Herbal Medicines PDR, a go-to reference for many herbalists and medical professionals. (This is not the most current edition, so some information may be outdated.) If you got o page 185 of the document you can get an idea of the types of interactions that can occur between herbal supplements and medications.

Some of these interactions make sense. For example, herbs that thin blood cause issues when combined with medications that thin blood. Or herbs that increase serotonin may potentially lead to serotonin toxicity when combined with medications that increase serotonin. Other interactions, though, are less obvious.

One of the most common herbs that interacts with and complicates the processing of many, many medicines is St. John’s Wort. There are many medicines that are metabolized by the liver. Because of the effect of St. John’s Wort on the liver, it can affect the metabolism of these drugs, making them less effective. This can affect everything from birth control to mood stabilizers.

Benefits of Supplements

I am not going to go into detail about the scientifically proven benefits of supplements in this blog. This is simply because there is way too much information to discuss and way too many supplements to cover. I will say that research studies, historical use, case studies, and self-reports have shown again and again that supplements can have amazing effects on your health and that many people successfully use supplements in lieu of or in addition to medication to manage their mental health.

To know if a specific supplement is truly effective, you need to research it. I highly recommend doing much more than a google search for two reasons. The first is that Google’s algorithms have been accused of hiding, censoring, or reducing access to alternative health information. While I do not know if this is true, I will say that I have an extremely difficult time finding accurate, unbiased information about supplements on Google. And that is the second reason I recommend doing your research somewhere besides google. Much of the information you will find with a general search is inaccurate or intended to sell you something.

If Google is out, then what options do you have? First, I highly recommend seeking out actual research studies. Some of which you can find through Google if you use Google Scholar to perform the search. PubMed is another great option for searching journal articles and scientific research. When looking for journal articles, you may find that all you can access is the abstract (short summary). If you find an article you really like, try searching for the title plus the term “pdf” or “full text” in a general search engine. About 50% of the time you will likely find the full text of the article somewhere.

Another excellent resource for researching supplements is monographs. You are more likely to find monographs for herbs, but there are some available for other supplements such as enzymes, amino acids, etc. A monograph is essentially a summary of the supplement, and will include things like dosage, safety, uses, parts of the plant to use, preparations, and other helpful information.

Some excellent resources for supplement monographs include

American Botanical Council
Herbal Medicines Compendium
World Health Organization
Canadian Government
European Medicines Agency
Herbal Medicines PDR (this is an old, outdated version, but accessible for free. The current edition can be purchased.).

There are also many other available resources that can be purchased for access in print or through databases. You just have to search for them.

My Personal Experience

After reading all of this, you may be thinking that I am encouraging you to avoid supplements. This is most definitely not the case. Supplements are an essential part of the management strategy for my autism, anxiety, depression, and PTSD. I also use supplements to help address my hormonal imbalances, deal with my blood sugar issues, and even to address minor health issues like colds or joint aches.

In my experience, supplements often do have fewer side effects than many of the medications I have taken. I also find that my body can process herbal products much more easily than it can chemical drugs or even synthesized supplements.

It is important to remember, though, that supplements, despite what the U.S. government allows companies and labels to say, are very much medicinal. They impact your body and your health in significant, meaningful ways. Also, because of the nature of the regulations in our country and the very nature of supplements (especially herbs) they are much less standardized than medicines.

For me, this is part of the appeal of supplements. Every plant has dozens or hundreds of components, every supplement is a little different, and every preparation can result in a slightly different result. This means one product can have multiple uses and can sometimes be tweaked and altered to fit your body’s specific needs.

Also, the laxer regulations mean that I can actually afford supplements and have the potential to even grow or forage some of them. For example, dandelion has multiple health benefits. It can benefit the liver, is packed full of nutrients, helps with urinary tract health, and has a ton of other uses. All of that for free! All it takes is education on what it can do (both good and bad), learning how to prepare it, and a little bit of experimenting to see how it will personally affect you.

If dandelions were a regulated medicine, they would no longer be plants at all. They would be reduced to a pile of chemicals, standardized for this or that specific component. It would lose vital other components needed to provide known benefits. And it would, without a doubt, cost me an arm and a leg to even get a hold of this chemical that my body would struggle to process. I would rather just pick a handful of dandelions and make some tea.

The Guidance of a Professional

I believe that supplements are a vital, effective, and viable alternative or supplement to medications. I also believe, though, that if you need medication to function or maintain your health, you should be cautious when introducing or transitioning to supplements. If at all possible, I highly recommend you do so under the guidance of an educated professional.

However, this may not necessarily mean a licensed doctor. Many western medicine professionals are not well versed in supplements or alternative health modalities and may even actively advocate against them. There are functional medicine doctors, herbalists, nutritional health coaches, and other practitioners, though, that have the knowledge and ability to guide you on this journey. You just have to invest a little effort into finding one who will work with you and for you.

If you are like me, though, and you have limited resources (especially financial ones), hiring a professional may simply not be an option. If there is no possible way you can afford or access a professional to assist you in transitioning to or adding supplements to your regimen, then you will need to become the expert. Research, education, networking, and staying current on what is known will all fall on you.

Because supplements have been a huge tool in my healing (and issue management) journey, I believe it is a worthwhile pursuit. Whether or not supplements are right for you, though, is something you must decide for yourself. Just makes sure you weigh all the evidence, the good and the bad, when making your decision.

Supplements as Alternative Treatments for Mental Health