Dietary Supplements: Hottest Trends in 2017

Keywords: beauty supplements, dietary supplements, green tea extract, mushroom extract, collagen supplments

By Nutritional Supplements, also called dietary supplements, I'm thinking of pills, powders, and liquid supplements that offer your body vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and other resources (like collagen supplements) to boost your health, energy, beauty, and wellness. I don't consider supplements that will help you lose weight or be a quick fix for anything. Instead, I use the terms nutritional supplements, or dietary supplements, to include products that offer your body resources that support what your body should be doing anyway, like digesting, detoxing, and the many other biological processes that it does. In addition, I use it to include beauty supplements, as I discuss further below.

In 2015, the market size for global dietary supplements was $122.08 billion, and it's projected to more than double to $278.02 Billion by 2024, according to Grand View Research.

I was recently asked my perspective on the trends in "nutritional products" and wanted to elaborate more on it in the Q&A below. I would love to hear if you find dietary supplements helpful. And, if so, then which ones and for what purpose? Email me at [email protected] or share on my Facebook page.

What are the most health-conscious shoppers seeking in dietary supplements?

Shoppers of nutritional supplements are progressively becoming concerned about what's really in the nutritional supplements that they use. Transparency of ingredients, quality/purity of ingredients, and trust that product labels represent what a customer wants and needs to know about the product is becoming a requirement for savvy consumers as more news circulates about contaminants (like lead) in some of these products, and that some products can have nutrient levels that are way above or below what the product labels say. 
 
What are the hottest trends right now in Nutritional Supplements and why?

More people are interested in improving their skin, hair, and energy through what they ingest, and they are trying Nutritional Supplements to help. Examples of these products include pills, powders, or liquid supplements that can infuse you with antioxidants, anti-inflammatory compounds, and probiotics. They aim to improve your digestion, detoxification, skin, hair, nails, DNA damage, sleep, and energy.

Are there any ingredients that are big right now in Nutritional Supplements and why?

Lately, I've been encountering collagen supplements. Advocates report that health benefits include improved skin and hair, joint pain and degeneration, heart health, and more. 

For a while, it's been popular to use compounds that come from things known to be high in antioxidants. Green tea extract still remains popular. More recently, I've noticed mushroom extract, and dietary supplements with seaweed or phytoplankton (also known as microalgae) compounds in various products.

Vitamin D is also becoming commonly accepted as something that we need to supplement because most of us are Vitamin D deficient (actually, 50% of the global population have vitamin D insufficiency) and Vitamin D deficiency is being linked to a long list of adverse health conditions. 

What are the future trends in Nutritional Supplements for 2018 and beyond?

Healthy fats are due for an image makeover. I grew up thinking that fat was bad, and should be avoided. In recent years, I've learned how beneficial it is to include healthy fats in my diet (like organic butter made from grass-fed cows, ghee, or olive oil; avocados, and flax seed oil). And it doesn't cause a weight issue when your diet and lifestyle are "clean"! I now often feel that my body needs it for healthy functioning.

Also, there will be more demand for pure, safe products that can help our gut bacteria, detoxification, beauty, and energy. I love that more people are approaching health through a multi-pronged strategy, including what we eat and drink. I'm conservative about any supplements, however, as it's hard to know which ones are both safe and effective. I try to eat a nutrient-dense diet and have started to experiment with 100% pure essential oils, but know that I should consider additional supplementation since our diets are not as nutritious as they used to be. So I've just recently started exploring this realm.