Are supplements snake oil?

Yes and No.

Most people in the developed world don't need supplements unless directed to take them by a doctor. There are specific medical reasons to take them, for example pregnant women need more calcium, iron, and other micro-nutrients, to make up for the nutrients used by the developing fetus. But most diets in the developed world are not deficient in those micro-nutrients. So unless a doctor discovers that you are deficient in something that can't be addressed by simply adjusting your diet, you don't need them.

Any extra that you take are excreted in your urine, so you are essentially paying good money to make your pee more yellow. You simply dont need them. It's flushing money down the toilet. Literally.

Vegans need to take supplements. There are nutrients that are not readily bio-available in plants, such as B12 and iron. You can get these from milk, eggs, and cheese, so vegetarians are usually fine, but vegans have no convenient source for them. There are plant sources, but you would need to either eat a very large amount of those plants or a lot of very specific plants to get them, due to the low bio-availability in most plant material. For example, spinach is high in iron, but because it is carried in cellulose, which humans can't digest, you get very little of it from spinach. Red meat, however, is loaded with both B12 and iron, both carried in highly bio-available forms. So if you choose not to eat meat, you need to make up for that deficiency with supplements.

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