How to Avoid The Supplement Scam In Your Health Routine | S1 E2 – Transcript

Many of us turn to Amazon for quick and easy ordering. And I just want to caution you that many suppliers on Amazon are actually selling fakes. Just know that Amazon is not policing this, you’re on your own using the reviews to determine if this makes sense for you.

Welcome to the Let’s Talk Toxin’s Show. Have you ever felt lost when trying to pick the right supplements? You’re not alone. In this episode, I’m going to talk about how to avoid falling for supplement scams that can waste your money and may even make the problem worse. If you’ve ever questioned whether those flashy labels and big promises are really true. You’re in the right place, stay tuned because I share some simple tips to help you make wise choices for your health. Become a smart supplement shopper with me.

And if you’re new here, I’m Dr. Gala Gorman, a licensed acupuncturist, naturopath, and author of “What’s your Kryptonite?.” I wrote the book to help women understand the effects of chronic stress that’s turned toxic. In the book, I share the MOLT Method™ I developed to make it easy to shed stress along with the accumulated toxicity, just like any other creature in nature that’s outgrown its trappings. So that you can cruise through midlife and beyond symptom-free. So that you can put an end to health issues like chronic fatigue, insomnia, mood swings, and even waking. 

MOLT, in this case is an acronym. The T stands for toxins and I can say with confidence that every symptom is caused by accumulated toxicity. I evaluate 12 categories of toxicity when I’m working with someone to unravel a health mystery. Our world is full of man-made substances that our bodies were not designed to deal with. Coupled this toxicity with an overwhelming amount of toxic stressors that the body was designed to manage and it’s no wonder women find themselves playing whack-a-mole with symptoms. 

So this is a report that’s a great example of a toxin trend. The FDA is reviewing the safety of PFAS chemicals. These are essentially forever chemicals used in food packaging. In the spring of 2020, so this has been quite a few years ago now. They found concerning data from rat studies. They use rats because rats honestly are fairly similar biologically to humans. It’s hard to believe, but that’s the truth. So they found concerning data from rat studies about these chemicals which are used to make take out boxes, grease proof. 

To address safety concerns, the FDA contacted the manufacturers and by July 2020, they agreed to stop selling these at PFAS lined food packaging options. So the FDA is committed to trying to ensure that the food containers are safe. But this is something that is really a problem and shows up in a lot of different ways.

So when I talk about watching for how your food is package. Just know that that these chemicals are used in the packaging to make it convenient and easy to get through the food chain essentially. So, if you’re looking for packaging, you want to look for packaging that’s BPA free, but just know that even healthy food can be packaged with chemicals. These synthetic chemicals are found in many products. And as I mentioned a moment ago, they’re known as forever chemicals because they don’t break down easily in the environment.

So the best alternative is to eat real food that doesn’t require a package. But if you have to turn to something that’s pre-packaged, I get it. It’s a convenience factor, for sure. Just look for things that are BPA-free or just specifically say, you know, chemical-free packaging or lining that sort of thing. 

Chapter 12 in my book, What’s Your Kryptonite? is dedicated to helping readers manage what I refer to as Tricky Toxins. Our bodies are bombarded with toxicity, so we have to learn to manage it. Just comment Tricky Toxins and we’ll send you a link where you can download the chapter for free. If commenting isn’t convenient, go to DrGala.com/Links and sign up for my Wellness Weekly Newsletter. You can respond to any email you receive from me with Tricky Toxins, and we’ll send you a link. 

So, every suggestion you’ll hear from me has been tested in the trenches. That includes saying no to symptom suppression. Over the past four decades. Yes. four decades. I’ve developed processes that work sustainably. Typically, it requires a combination of approaches that I have synthesized to address the health issues that show up repeatedly for many women. And, you know, obviously, that started with trying to address things that I was experiencing.

But recently, I had an experience or an opportunity, if you want to call it that, to Walk My Talk. I was sent an inquiry about potentially becoming a medical director for a healthcare facility that dealt with chronic disease. And so typically, what happens with these places that deal with a lot of chronic disease is people tend to be prescribed medication after medication. Which essentially has one medication suppressing the symptoms from the previous medication. And before, you know it people are on multiple half a dozen or more medications. 

And so what I would propose in a situation like this is not going to be adopted most likely in any sort of formal scenario. But you have the ability to adopt this yourself in your own life. Even if you are trying to manage a chronic disease from home. What I’ve learned is that everyone needs a reboot.

So if you are not familiar with my Human Energy System Reboot, you can find more information about that at DrGala.com/Links. And just know that the Human Energy System Reboot is seven ways and five plays that I’ve essentially synthesized over everything I’ve learned over the past four decades.

And you apply these seven ways and five plays at your level and they accumulate benefits. So so you can start out, you know, level one with only a few ways and and a few plays and you can build from there. But at least you’ll know what you need to do and and what kinds of things you need to assemble to assemble together to actually have some significant improvement.

Now, let’s talk about the ways to avoid the supplement scam in your health routine. When I’m done, drop a comment and let me know if you take supplements and where you get them. 

I just wanted to start by sharing a story that you may find heartening. Certainly you will if you’re a pet person. My beloved westie. He’s been gone for many years now. But Duncan, that was his name, was showing signs of something was wrong. He had some sort of health thing going on. And this went on for weeks. I took him to the vet. We were in a new area. We had moved to a new area and I took him to the vet. The vet couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him.

And it finally got to the point where I called my vet that had taken care of him since he was a puppy. Back where I moved from and I said, “Doc, you know, there’s something really wrong with Duncan and I’ve taken him to the vet twice now. They can’t figure out what’s wrong.” And so he suggested that I take him to the emergency clinic in downtown. I lived in a suburb and he had actually gone to school in this area, so he’s very familiar with the area and the facilities and what was available. 

And so it was new year’s weekend. I took Duncan to the emergency clinic and he spent the weekend, New Year’s weekend at the emergency clinic. And they discovered that he had developed a urinary tract infection that had gone undetected to the point where it had spread to his spine. So really important that you not let any sort of infection go unmanaged.

If you find that symptoms are escalating, despite what you’re trying to do. I certainly respect your desire to treat it naturally. And you’re going to hear how we did that in a moment, but if the signs and symptoms clearly indicate that things are escalating. You need to get some professional help and potentially even antibiotics.

In this particular case, they put Duncan on very strong antibiotics and knocked out the problem for a short time, because that’s what antibiotics tend to do when they haven’t really addressed the root cause of the problem. So we tend to need to follow up any sort of antibiotic treatment with what I refer to as cleanup.

And then also identifying what the root cause of the problem. In this particular case, Duncan had a change of environment. He had always been able to go outside. He had a dog door and could come and go as he wanted to. And so I think he just got used to urinating, you know, how male dogs do. They just urinate a little bit at a time and they never quite empty their bladder. And I think he had become accustomed to that. And then in this change of environment, he had to wait for me to take him out and just he had a buildup of bacteria. I think that ended up, ending badly. 

So, in this whole process with me now, trying to figure out how to make sure I can take care of him long-term. I went to the local pet food store. And this particular area that I was living in was known for alternative health and being natural approach to not just taking care of humans. People love their pets. And so so this was an all natural pet food store, which was super cool. And the people in the store were experts and they really showed me how important it is to not feed our pets the same food. 

Duncan had eaten the same food every day for 10 plus years. And so I started rotating his food and and that seemed to really help, but when his symptoms started returning and now I knew what was going on. So I caught it at a very early point in time. And so when his symptoms started returning, rather than going back and giving him more antibiotics, which I knew was just going to be a vicious cycle. I used what I used myself with him for a urinary tract infection. I never let it get too out of hand because I know what’s going on. And I turned to a supplement, a cranberry extract supplement that comes into capsule form. So in this particular case, just open up the capsule, put a little bit in his food and knocked it right out, just like it would for me.

And so I treated him regularly until we got things kind of cleaned up. Cranberry extract, I have a whole video on urinary tract infection. So I’m not going to go over that in detail here. But if you want a link to the urinary tract infection video, and you can’t find it here. You can go to my YouTube channel or just comment below this video and we’ll track down the link for you. But just know that these supplements are really helpful. They make it so that the bacteria can not cling to the walls of the urinary track and it’s easier than to flush things out. 

So, the next thing I wanted to say is that, it’s very common to hear from supplement suppliers that you need to be taking a supplement every day, essentially for the rest of your life. And so if anybody tells you that you need to be taking a supplement every day for the rest of your life, I’m skeptical. I did create a video about five supplements that I do think you may want to take regularly and potentially longterm, which I very rarely recommend. 

For the most part, I recommend that we use a protocol that is designed to specifically address whatever it is you’ve got going on right now. And then you take a break from that and you want your body to become strong and able to handle things on its own. But in this particular case, just know that if you are going to use supplements, long-term. You want to use the, maybe for three weeks and then take a week of rest and then switch.

And so with, in the case of something like multivitamins for example, which is one of the five supplements that I recommended in this other video. I would use four brands of multivitamin that were slight variations, typically. But there brands that you resonate with that are high quality. I personally use a proprietary process with the people that I work with and I would evaluate which brand that person’s body is calling for in the moment.

But if you’re trying to DIY this at home, without my help, you want to rotate your supplements. I typically recommend that whatever you’re taking, you want at least three or four brands that you’re going to rotate on an ongoing basis, and then you’re going to take it. If you’re taking it all the time, you can take one day off a week.

If you’re really wanting to rotate it, then I would take one week off a month. So this actually gives your body a little time to rest. And if you are consuming too much of something, it gives your body a little time to kind of detox that out of your system and and accomplish a little bit of a reset.

We definitely want to give our bodies regular opportunities for digestive rest and to reboot our gut. Remember, you can get the Tricky Toxins chapter of my book, What’s Your Kryptonite? for free. Just comment Tricky Toxins and we’ll send you a link where you can download the chapter. If commenting isn’t convenient, go to DrGala.com/Links and sign up for my Wellness Weekly Newsletter. You can respond to any email you received from me with Tricky Toxins, and we’ll send you a link. 

So, now let’s continue with more ways to avoid the supplement scam in your health routine.

And don’t forget, when I’m done drop a comment and let me know if you take supplements and where you get them from. Many of us turn to Amazon for quick and easy ordering. And I just want to caution you that many suppliers on Amazon are actually selling fakes. They may also be selling things that they’ve white labeled. So what a white label means is that it’s a certain brand, but they want it to appear that it’s their own brands so they white label it. Which I don’t necessarily have a problem with, that is almost like an endorsement. 

But you need to be aware that you can’t be a hundred percent certain of what you’re getting, unless you’re getting that from the manufacturer. And so we like to really think we can trust Amazon, but just know that Amazon is not policing this. You’re on your own using the reviews to determine if this makes sense for you.

So beyond buying directly from the manufacturer store using Amazon or another way. You should be turning to a practitioner. So just like if you were getting prescribed a medication, you want a practitioner who knows your situation to recommend the supplements, which typically include herbs. And herbs can be really powerful energy movers essentially, and your body, but they need to understand your overall situation to make sure what you’re taking makes sense in your situation. 

White label may be the same formula you’re already taking. So remember what I said that white label could just be another label, another manufacturers or suppliers label on top of the, or in replacement of the manufacturer’s label. So, if you’re wanting to apply what I’m recommending here by rotating supplements. Then you just need to really make sure that the formulation is different than you’re actually getting the variation that you’re looking for.

The answers I give to questions I receive quite often apply to and will be helpful for most women. I’ve accumulated a few related questions here. And if you’d like to ask a question yourself, I created a form so that it’s sure to get answered. And your question could be shared in a future episode, helping many other women.

So comment, “QUESTION,” and we’ll get you a link to the form. If commenting isn’t convenient, go to DrGala.com/Links and sign up for my Wellness Weekly Newsletter. You can respond to any email you received from me with “QUESTION” and we’ll send you a link.

What supplements are appropriate for pets?

So in other words, what are the best supplements for pets? Well, I can say that you need to be quite careful supplementing for pets. There are certain things that just aren’t appropriate for dogs and cats. But a lot of things really do apply like the cranberry extract. I gave my dog, the cranberry extract. I did check to make sure that there was not any contra-indication for a dog eating cranberries. 

But if you think about it, my dog might have eaten cranberries off of a bush out on a walk or, you know, out in nature. And so giving him cranberry extract shouldn’t have been a problem. But there are some things that wouldn’t necessarily apply for pets, but this is becoming more and more prevalent to give pets supplements. And I would just say that the first place you want to start is improving the quality of your pet’s food and to make sure that you’re rotating the food that they’re eating.

Why might using the same supplement for many years lead to health issues? 

So there are some hidden dangers of long-term supplement use. And I would just say that really, we need to be focused on gut health. And so, when we rotate supplements or even take a break from supplements we’re rebooting our digestive system, or actually introducing different nutrients into our microbiome. Each one of these supplements from different brands sourced from different places has a unique biodiversity. And that biodiversity contributes to how it improves our overall microbiome.

So it can be really helpful to rotate your multivitamin. I typically recommend three to four multivitamins, and then I’m rotating them on a monthly basis. And you can even take one day off a week or a whole week off a month and and give your body time to do a reset, time for digestive rest, essentially.

How does using multiple brands of supplements enhance their effectiveness? 

Well, using multiple brands can actually make a big difference. It’s contributing to something I refer to as nutrient biodiversity. You may have heard me talk about this before, but essentially when we use three or four brands, each one of those brands will have their suppliers, their ingredient suppliers.  And each one of those ingredient suppliers will have a certain biodiversity that is inherent in wherever they grow their herbs, or they source their ingredients. 

And so, then the manufacturer is assembling all those ingredients from their sources. And creating a unique cocktail of components, essentially. 

So when you introduce different ingredients with a different biodiversity into your gut. That triggers what’s already in your gut to work a little harder, it kind of doesn’t know what to do. This is what happens with our immune system as well. 

When a new pathogen is introduced, it can be helpful actually to spike our immune system and force it to work a little harder in the short term and figure out what to do. And then, the good bacteria is going to add to the little army you’ve got going on in your gut and and make it healthier in the longterm. 

Why is it important to purchase supplements from a reliable source instead of an online marketplace? 

There are risks of buying supplements from unknown sellers. I have heard real horror stories about fakes and placebos. Actually, some supplements are truly placebos and I would rather honestly have them use a placebo rather than using a fake. Meaning that they’re using ingredients that are different from what is advertised on the label. B

But just know that cheapest is definitely not best. And you do not want to be taking supplements that you do not know a lot about where they’re coming from. And again, just as a reminder when you source something, for example from Amazon. If you know exactly what you want and you know what you’re doing. Amazon is super convenient. I use it too, not for supplements typically. Because I source supplements directly from the manufacturers, especially for the people that I work with. But I understand that it’s convenient. You just want to make sure, like, if you’re buying a certain brand, it will say the manufacturer’s store, right at the top, right under that product. And so you’ll know where you’re getting that from. 

How can incorporating a digestive rest day improve the benefits we receive from our supplements? 

And really, this digestive rest I’m suggesting can boost your supplement benefits. It actually allows our gut to reboot and If you study fasting at all, in essentially a 24 hour fast. Our intestinal tract reboots, which is extremely healthy for your overall digestion to do that regularly. But any supplements that you’re taking are still requiring digestion in order for your body to assimilate them. 

So, if you are not taking a break from your supplements regularly, I typically recommend that we take supplements for several weeks and then take a break for a week. But if you have your own strategy and that doesn’t work for you. At a minimum, you want to take a break one day a week and allow your gut to reboot. Just really helpful if you can pick one day a week and eat OMAD, one meal a day, and just make sure that you’re waiting at least 24, 25, 26 hours before you’re eating your next meal. 

This tends to work really well for people because if you time it right, you’re still eating at least one meal a day. And so it’s not quite as extreme as trying to do a 48-hour fast or you know, something longer than that. It is fairly easy to just eat one meal a day and to time it, so that you can give your digestive system at least 25, 26 hours of rest. 

Remember. If you’d like me to answer your specific question, make sure to comment “QUESTION,” and we’ll send you a link to the submission form. You’ll want to subscribe to the channel notifications to get regular updates. 

This has been the Let’s Talk Toxin show. Make sure you subscribe to my channel on YouTube and activate the notifications. You’ll get a reminder when I’m going live next.