The Supplement Aisle Is Not Your Pharmacy

Supplements are sold like medicine but regulated like food. The distinction matters — especially after sixty, when interactions with prescription drugs become a real and measurable risk.

There is a quiet contradiction at the heart of the supplement industry. Products are marketed with the language of medicine — doses, benefits, clinical claims — but they are regulated as a category of food. The result is a marketplace where quality, purity, and evidence vary enormously, and where the burden of sorting it out falls on the buyer.

For older adults, the stakes are higher. The same liver and kidney pathways that clear prescription medications also process many supplements. St. John's Wort can blunt blood thinners. High-dose vitamin K interferes with warfarin. Even calcium, taken at the wrong time, can block the absorption of thyroid medication.

This is not an argument against all supplements. Some are well-supported: vitamin B12 in the setting of deficiency, vitamin D when truly low, and a handful of others with real evidence behind them. It is an argument for treating the supplement aisle with the same seriousness you would bring to a pharmacy — because for your body, it is one.

Three rules help. Know what you take and why. Tell your doctor everything, including the bottles they did not prescribe. And assume that 'natural' describes origin, not safety.

The most expensive supplement is the one that causes a problem you did not expect.

— Gregory D. Adams, MD,FAAFP

Get the book on Amazon

#SupplementsAfter60 #SeniorHealth #VitaminsForSeniors #SupplementSafety #DrugInteractions #HealthyAging #DrGregoryAdams