Can you get everything you need by eating a healthy diet? The global dietary supplements market is projected to top $200bn in the next few years, so a lot of people clearly feel that they need a little extra help. In the largely unregulated world of powders and potions, we take a look at some of the latest developments in the market, with some expert advice on getting your supplement game up to scratch.

POWDERED GREENS

We have moved on from the days when “two veg” was considered plenty, knowing the more we mix up our vegetables, the higher the chance of getting a good range of healthy micronutrients. But for sheer variety, even the most kaleidoscopic salad would struggle to keep up with some of the powdered greens on the market. One leading brand, Athletic Greens, boasts 75 ingredients in its AG1 product, and even those with fewer generally have a few dozen. But numbers aren’t everything, and there are words of caution before deciding to increase your veg count using powders.

‘When it comes to greens, they are always better in their natural form. Powdered broccoli is never going to be as good for you as real broccoli,’ says registered nutritional therapist Alice Mackintosh. ‘There are, however, lots of “super greens”, such as moringa, spirulina and chlorella that have been shown to have great anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. As you are unlikely to get these in a regular diet, there can definitely be some benefit to taking them in powdered form. But it is not about replacing a healthy diet, which must always be the foundation before you think about starting on supplements.’

Look for: organic ingredients; transparency over contents.

Avoid: bulking agents; sugar and sweeteners.

VITAL VITAMINS

The era of the bespoke vitamin has arrived. Forget packets of generic multivitamins – these days you can have supplements geared to your personal requirements. With a company called Nourished, you first complete an online questionnaire about your lifestyle and a few days later you get a month’s supply of 3D-printed gummies containing vitamins tailored to your needs. This personalised approach is becoming incredibly popular, but there is only so much you can learn from answering a few questions from the comfort of your smartphone. To really find out what your body needs, a nutritionist should run tests on your blood, urine, saliva or stool samples. ‘These tests will tell us in detail about the underlying imbalances in your body,’ says Sue Camp, a nutritionist specialising in digestive issues. ‘From there we can structure supplement support according to what the individual needs.’

If taking your vitamins orally seems a little outdated, you can opt for a drip. The brilliantly named getadrip.com offers everything from hydration and multivitamin drips, through to fitness and even anti-ageing drips. This approach is a premium choice in time as well as cost. But while there are some definite benefits, any serious vitamin deficiency
will almost always require dietary changes too. ‘You can’t out-supplement a bad diet,’ Camp says. ‘If you are adding supplements on top you are building on shaky foundations. It is important to get your nutritional base right first.’

One nutrient that we often struggle to get enough of is vitamin D, which only a tiny proportion of us have in sufficient quantities. There is a simple pinprick test to check your level, but most of us could do with quite a lot more.

Look for: vitamin supplement support structured to your individual needs.

Avoid: sugar and sweeteners; less easily absorbed forms of vitamins.

MAGIC OF MUSHROOMS

In the East, mushrooms have long been considered to have incredible healing properties, and the rest of the world is keen to get in on the game. Names such as reishi, chaga and lion’s mane have now been inked into the supplements lexicon and companies are lining up to offer us mushroom coffees, powders and tinctures.

The potential health benefits from these exotic fungi are wide-ranging and sound very impressive. They can potentially help with things including brain health, stress and immune relief. There is even research into using mushroom extract alongside chemotherapy to see if it can help fight cancer.

While there may well be many benefits to these mushrooms, we need to be cautious about expecting too much from them, according to Dr Greg Potter, chief science officer at Resilient Nutrition: ‘There has been quite a bit of work showing the positive effects of mushrooms, particularly on immune function. But the level of clinical research compared with [that carried out for] other supplements has been very limited.’

Look for: organic products made from mushrooms themselves, not grain or roots.

Avoid: overblown claims – there are health benefits, but it is too soon to talk about preventing or curing cancer.