27/03/2026
DO YOU TAKE SUPPLEMENTS?
This is for YOU. And it is something you may not like.
When did orthomolecular medicine, or the use of supplements for healing, become so medicalised? I can only liken it to what’s happening today, with a proliferation of 'naturopathic' doctors appearing everywhere. Everyone wants to offer expertise, yet very few take the time to understand the intricate systems they claim to influence.
In an ideal world, hospitals would prioritise health through organic, plant-based meals and natural interventions, reserving surgical or pharmaceutical measures strictly for emergencies or trauma. Practitioners in any field should rely on the expertise of specialists in their own fields - as my kids say, ‘Get in your own lane'.
Sadly, in modern medicine, there is a doctor-culture of “I must be responsible for it all,” rather than recognising the value of delegating to those trained in their specific disciplines. This is not arrogance; it is an expected and outdated mindset that fuels systemic errors and it was pushed by media and corporations set to gain.
The danger extends beyond conventional medicine. Reading an article, listening to a company rep, or completing a brief course suddenly qualifies someone to advise on a highly specialised area. When this becomes normalized, it creates not only clinical failures but also undermines the credibility of natural therapies.
History offers a clear warning. In the early 1900s, figures like Dr Kellogg and others identified specific deficiencies and linked them to newly diagnosed illnesses. Suddenly, rickets, beri beri, kwashiorkor, and anaemia were blamed on a lack of a single nutrient. The solution, often, was to administer synthetic vitamins and proteins in isolation.
Over time, this approach became standard practice. I’ve written extensively on the Edenic Health blog about the unintended consequences of these treatments; excessive iron, protein overload, high-dose folate, synthetic B12 and the catastrophic long-term, even generational, impacts they've had on health, growth, and development.
Does this mean supplementation is unnecessary? Not at all. Our soils are depleted, water quality is often compromised, air pollution is prevalent, and modern food is substandard in nutrient density. Yet the same individuals promoting supplements frequently downplay the value of WHOLE foods or organic diets.
Few educate on dietary elimination of nutrient-depleting foods or the synergistic effects of nutrients in real food. In reality, a single deficiency rarely exists in isolation. One missing mineral, vitamin, or trace element usually signals a cascade of deficiencies and metabolic disruption - gut dysbiosis. Professionally, I have spent decades undoing the damage caused by this chain reaction.
The 1990s saw a shift in naturopathy that mirrored conventional medical thinking. To keep pace with modern expectations, many practitioners began emulating synthetic supplementation protocols with ‘practitioner only’ supplements. Rather than prioritising diet and lifestyle, some began advocating meat-heavy, dairy-rich, sugar-laden regimens, rationalized as evidence-based practice.
The consequence was predictable: patients were consuming massive doses of isolated (expensive) synthetic supplements daily, often unnecessarily and sometimes harmfully. I was guilty of this myself during my nursing years with my initial interest in natural health, until deeper study of natural nutrition revealed the errors in this approach.
The even newer field of sports supplements has added another, more dangerous aspect to the issue; protein toxicity, hyper-supplementation and obsession resulting in serious issues from organ damage to cancer. I am not joking; I see it constantly.
The fallout from this trend has been extensive and often preventable. We have seen the side effects of iron supplementation in children, protein toxicity from over-fortified foods, MTHFR mutations and epigenetic effects linked to folic acid fortification for expectant mothers, and more recently, neurotoxicity associated with excessive B6 intake.
None of these harms were inevitable; they arose because practitioners overstepped the bounds of their knowledge and treated complex systems as if they were linear and predictable.
The lesson is clear: human physiology is intricate and deeply interconnected. The most effective interventions respect this complexity. Natural therapies, when properly applied, work in harmony with the body rather than against it.
True healing is rarely about singular nutrients or single interventions. It is about understanding context, respecting limits, and staying in one’s lane while collaborating with those trained in complementary areas. Had the early pioneers of supplementation adhered to this principle, much of the long-term harm could have been avoided. Health today would have looked very different.
It is not a question of avoiding supplements entirely; it is a question of WHOLE supplements - herbs, superfoods, wholefoods and natural elemental minerals. Only by combining deep knowledge with respect for natural systems can we avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
If you are confused about the supplements you take or wish to take, please just ask. My brain does a quiet freak out during consultations when my patients show me what has been prescribed for them; it's as dangerous as polypharmacy or too many medications!
