Understanding the role of dietary supplements

Most nutrition experts agree that food is the best source of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. However, nutritional surveys consistently report that most people do not consume adequate amounts of many vitamins and minerals. Vitamin and mineral supplementation can fill in the gaps of a nutritionally inadequate diet. As many as half of American adults occasionally take a vitamin or mineral supplement and about one-quarter supplement on a regular basis.
The "balanced" diet has long been recommended as the ideal way to meet nutritional requirements. Unfortunately, the typical American chooses an "unbalanced" diet of extremes—too much total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, protein, sugar, and salt and not enough complex carbohydrates, fiber, fruits, vegetables, vitamins, and minerals. It is ironic that Americans, in the country with the greatest amount and variety of nutritious foods, consistently fall short in self-selection of nutritious foods. The "unbalanced" American diet has been shown by an overwhelming number of studies to be a contributing factor in the development of chronic, degenerative diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity.
The second National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES II) found that on any given day, 46 percent of Americans have not consumed any fruit, 24 percent have not chosen any dairy products, and 18 percent have completely skipped over vegetables.1 Other studies report that nine out of ten Americans do not consume even the minimum daily recommendation of five fruit and vegetable servings.2
The Total Diet Study reported that intakes of calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, copper, and manganese are less than 80 percent of the RDA or below the low end of the Estimated Safe and Adequate Daily Dietary Intake range in most males and females of all ages.3 Additional research confirms the inadequacy of American diets: