Nutritional supplements: A cure for what ails you?

Our Enlightened Eater columnist ponders whether supplements are a magic bullet for your health, or just hocus pocus

Wouldn't it be great if there was a potion for everything that ailed you? For example, what if you're a bundle of nerves as you wait for your plane to take off for an overseas flight, but then need to be ready for peak performance within hours of landing? An all-natural supplement formulated specifically to calm travelers down seems like just the solution. Or what about day-to-day living: Do you feel tired when you get out of bed? Down your magical elixir and you're ready for the day. Wired at night and worried that you won't fall asleep? No fear, there's another natural concoction designed especially for that situation.

If only life were that simple.

The growing assortment of nutritional supplements geared towards various physical complaints is truly astounding. And while many make claims, finding the science behind these statements is not an easy task - that's if there's any science at all.

Sorting through the science from the science fiction is becoming more difficult all the time. In my weekly column, I will try to help you translate the science of nutrition into what you put on your plate. Healthy eating should be enjoyable and affordable.

Pre-Flight travel drinks are a perfect example of products now in the marketplace. According to the product website, there are three "specially formulated natural supplements that help combat the most common difficulties air travelers face - safely and naturally." Each one is supposedly geared to relieve a specific air travel symptom:

  

Calm is said to reduce stress and anxiety and "contains natural ingredients that improve brain function and outlook ...which contribute calming and relaxing properties."

Antioxidant is supposed to protect your immune system as it "arms you with the essential ingredients needed to fight airborne germs and bacteria and build up your body's defenses."

Finally, Jet Lag is for peak mental and physical capacity. This formulation is "fortified with a blend of fog-lifting nutrients ... gives your mind and body the boost they need. So you leave the jet lag back at the baggage claim."

The drinks can be consumed daily and are said to be "a natural alternative to over-the-counter and synthetic medications." But where are the studies where the product is tested on subjects - either on the ground or in the air? None are evident. But to give you a little food for thought, the manufacturers suggest that the next time you're on a crowded plane you think about the fact that a "common cough or sneeze travels 12 feet and remains in the air for 4 hours." Where did they get these figures from? Maybe the idea here is to scare you when you hear a sneeze.

And when I scanned published research on some of the ingredients like huperzine and gingko biloba, which are found in the Jet Lag product I did come across studies where both these compounds were being investigated as to their effect in Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline. There were no studies, however, around their benefits for jet lag.

Posted in: Health