--- title: Mental Health Blog | Supplements description: Supplements | Mental health blog for families, patients and health professionals in the Minneapolis / St. Paul area --- # Minneapolis St. Paul Mental Health Blog Select Category addiction ADHD ADHD in Children ADHD in Teenagers ADHD Minnesota Adolescent Mental Health Adults advanced practice nurses Aggression Aging air quality alcohol in kids Alcohol use Alzheimers Alzheimer's studies anxiety Anxiety Help APRN Minnesota APRN support ASD austim Autism Behavioral Problems benzodiazepine Bi Polar in children Binge Drinking biofeedback bipolar borderline personality disorder Brain Injury Bullying Caffeine Caffeine poisoning Cannabis Use cardiovascular events CBD Celiac Disease Children Mental Health clinical studies CNS Mental Health Coffee Cognitive Disorder corona virus Covid-19 and our Health dementia Depression Depression in College Depression in Men Depression in Women Depression studies help diabetes Diet Diet and Mental Health Drug Addiction Drug Overdose e-cigs Eating Disorders eating healthy ECT electronic devices evidence based improvement Excercise Exercise for Mental Health exercising mental health Expansion Medicaid Family Fasting fatigue and Covid FDA recall Fear and Phobias fibromyalgia Fish Oils fitness food and mental health Friday point of view Gender Identity Guns and Mental Health Gut Health hallucinations Headaches hearing heart attacks High School and Depression hospitalizations Hypertension IBS Insomnia internet gaming addiction ketamine kratom loneliness love and Mental Health Low Vitamin D Marijuana Use maternal health Medication discontinuation help Meditation Menopause Mental Health Mental health access Mental Health and eating Mental Health coverage Mental health help mental health in pregnancey Mental Health in Pregnancy Mental Health Risk Mental Health Studies Mental health Teenagers Mentally ill Metabolism methamphetamine use Migraines Minnesota APRN mood disorder Music Nightmares Nurse Practitioners Nutrition Obesity OCD Omega 3 Opioid Recommendations opioid use opposition to bill H.F.2803 pandemic Physican Assistants post partum depression Postpartum Depression pregnancy pregnancy and depression Prescription help psilocybin PTSD SAD help Schizophrenia scope of practice Seasonal Affective Disorder self care Senate 511 bill Serotonin S.F. 511 SF511 HF435 Sleep sleep apnea sleep help smartphone Smoking social isolation social media social support SSRI use Stigma and Mental health stimulants stress Stress Help Stroke Substance Abuse Disorder Sugary Drinks Suicide Supplements synthetic drugs Taurine TBI and Sleep TD Teenagers The Sheridan Story TMS Type 1 Diabetes vaping Violence vitamin D warfarin use withdrawl Women Depression Help Womens Mental Health youth depression This is a search field with an auto-suggest feature attached. - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. Posts about: ## Supplements ![Snip20130711_1-resized-600.png](https://www.maryaprn.com/hs-fs/file-223998067-png/2014/Snip20130711_1-resized-600.png) [Supplements](https://www.maryaprn.com/blog/topic/supplements) ### [Multiple Herbal Supplements | a patient w/ Psychotic Symptoms](https://www.maryaprn.com/blog/multiple-herbal-supplements-a-patient-w/-psychotic-symptoms) Thu, Sep 29, 2016 @ 06:30 AM ## The dietary supplement market has increased greatly over the years, ...as has the number of people using these products to improve their health. How safe are they? Know what you are taking. There have been few cases that specifically show a link between the products used by the patient and the onset of psychiatric illness. [MaryAPRN.com/ Advanced Practice Psych LLC](https://www.maryaprn.com/blog/author/maryaprn-com-advanced-practice-psych-llc) [Read More](https://www.maryaprn.com/blog/multiple-herbal-supplements-a-patient-w/-psychotic-symptoms) ![](https://www.maryaprn.com/hs-fs/file-2630231869-png/Gallery_2015/Snip20150317_6.png) [Supplements](https://www.maryaprn.com/blog/topic/supplements) ### [Supplements and Health | Why you should skip the pills, go for the real food](https://www.maryaprn.com/blog/supplements-and-health-why-you-should-skip-the-pills-go-for-the-real-food) Thu, Jan 21, 2016 @ 06:30 AM ## Why you should skip the pills, eat real food for the benefits | Supplement Health Today’s commercials tend to over-hype the message, especially when it comes to taking supplements / vitamins. It is as if ‘The food you eat isn’t enough’. Western thought process has been under scrutiny for pushing the idea that 'more is better'. If the antioxidants that occur naturally in our food, like broccoli and carrots, are good for us, a supplement with the same thing must also be good. But that’s not quite true. Truth: Antioxidants can help stop damage to our cells, but only so much is helpful, after that it becomes a negative, here is what was recently discovered: Antioxidants are touted as protectors of our health because they eliminate free-radicals that damage molecules in cells and tissues by grabbing electrons from them, making those molecules, in turn, unstable. This process can then snowball until a cell dies or even a whole organ collapses, such as in liver failure or heart failure. An antioxidant should stop the electron-grabbing radicals, and keep us healthy. On this basis, a group of scientists proposed in 1981 the creation of a nutritional supplement to fight free-radicals. They reasoned that since many observational epidemiological studies had shown that people who eat lots of vegetables are at lower risk of colon cancer, heart disease and many other bad conditions, then the “active” ingredient should be identified and put into a pill. They thought that it must be beta-carotene, which helps make carrots orange, because it’s an antioxidant. What's better than a pill? But it’s not that simple. The constant interplay between electron acceptors (radicals) and donors (antioxidants) is a finely balanced and very complicated biochemistry at the core of how living cells survive and grow. When there is too much of either acceptors or donors, the system is out of balance, and damage can occur. So extra antioxidants aren’t necessarily a good thing. But in the late 1980s, two intervention trials, one in Seattle and the other in Finland, started. Interventions trials are hugely expensive to do well, and these were no exception. For the Seattle trial, approximately 18,000 men and women were randomized in 1988 to receive either a tablet containing beta-carotene or a tablet containing no active ingredient, which is the famous placebo. The plan was to follow the men and women for 10 years; the researchers hypothesized they would observe a lower lung cancer risk in the beta-carotene tablet group, hopefully much lower. [MaryAPRN.com/ Advanced Practice Psych LLC](https://www.maryaprn.com/blog/author/maryaprn-com-advanced-practice-psych-llc) [Read More](https://www.maryaprn.com/blog/supplements-and-health-why-you-should-skip-the-pills-go-for-the-real-food)