Nutritional supplements can support and improve health. Health care costs are one of the biggest components of a family's budget. Anything that reduces those costs along with improving health is a benefit. With regular, long-term use of nutritional supplements, current and future health care costs will decrease and the quality of life for many people will increase.

These are significant benefits to the use of nutritional supplements. Here are just a few of the benefits:

For the elderly:

•Increasing the consumption of calcium and folic acid can strengthen the immune system.

•Consistently taking vitamins and mineral supplements would improve the functioning of the immune system and thereby reducing the number of sick days by 50%.

•Using calcium and Vitamin D nutritional supplements would reduce the number of hip fractures by 20% per year. This would result in a savings of over $2 billion.

•If elderly citizens could delay or avoid the incidence of heart disease, stroke or hip fracture for five years, health care cost could decrease by $90 billion each year.

For women or child-bearing age:

•The use of multivitamins with folic acid would reduce the incidence of spina bifida birth defects by 70%

For men and women of all ages:

•Regular use of the B vitamins would improve cardiovascular function, reduce blood pressure, reduce stress and provide support for cancer-fighting antioxidant cell renewal. This would save individuals billions of dollars each year.

One common question that is asked is why isn't eating good food enough. Why are supplements necessary?

The answer comes from the realities of life today. Modern farming methods focus on mono-crop farming. Mono-crops are one type of crop that is grown intensively. Large amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used to make the mono-crop produce large yields. Because of the concentration on one crop, the fields are soon stripped of nutrients. Rotation of different crops is not used, so nutrients are not used in a balanced fashion. Also, fields are not allowed to lie fallow nor are they replenished with a mixture of natural nutrients. Produce today does not have the nutrients that they had in the past. Therefore, they do not supply all the necessary elements that human bodies need.

In addition, much of today's diet consists of fruits and vegetables that have been picked before their ripening date, or processed foods filled with preservatives in order to survive long transportation schedules or food that has been stripped of fiber or loaded with sugars and fats.

Nutritional supplements allow consumers to have the benefit of an array of varied nutrients that they used to get from their own gardens and farms but that they can no longer get from mass-produced and processed grocery store foods.

There is some concern that nutritional supplements may be injurious to health. But there is no hard evidence to support this fear. While it is true that some supplements may have side effects in some individuals, this is no different than the idea that for some people aspirin can upset their stomachs. As with most effective medicines, the benefits of supplements seem to far outweigh the risks. If supplements are used in the recommended manner and dosage level, there is very little risk to health and quite a lot of benefit.