How Long Do Supplements Take to Work?

• How Long do Supplements Take to Work?
• Why it Might Take Longer for Supplements to Work
• Why Taking Supplements Might Prompt Unexpected Improvements
• Can Increasing Dosage Affect How Long Supplements Take to Work?

How long do supplements take to work?

Over the years, many people have wondered how long supplements take to work. I have had extensive feedback during my role as Head of Nutrition and working in a clinic using supplements and nutrients for over a decade. The majority of people say that they start to see a change in their symptoms and how they feel as early as in the first few weeks of taking supplements, even if it is quite subtle.

Even if you haven't completely ticked all your boxes in terms of what you want to achieve with changing symptoms or achieving your whole health goal, you can notice some subtle changes very early.

Why it might take longer for supplements to work

Sometimes it can take a little bit longer to feel better or to resolve symptoms. This can come down to where you are at in a scale of nutrient levels in the body. If you imagine a valley or a kind of recess, the bottom of that is a bit like having deficient or insufficient nutrient levels. The flat top is like you have good nutrient levels and then the sky is like you have optimal levels. Depending on where you are at in your diet, nutrient intake from foods that you're eating, other health symptoms that you might have going on, it can take you longer to climb out of that valley.

This is why there is no set answer to the question how long do supplements take to work. You might not notice all the changes in your health immediately but you might start seeing more changes after a month or within the second month. So you might get subtle changes in the first few weeks and then much bigger changes as the weeks go on.

Why taking supplements might prompt unexpected improvements

Some customers will say they noticed changes to their symptoms or health that they didn't expect. This can be because when you start taking certain nutrients, the body is really clever at prioritising where those nutrients need to go first. Sometimes those areas are not the areas that you thought needed help. Again, this complicates answering the question how long do supplements take to work.

The body will prioritise major organs such as the brain, the heart, the liver. A good example of this often happens with fish oil. If you're very low in omega-3 which is found in oily fish and you start to take our fish oil, you may notice that you feel like your memory and brain function is much better. However, the original reason that you bought the fish oil was for hydrating your skin. When this happens, your body is being totally clever and is prioritising your needs. It sends that lovely oily fish up to your brain to support your memory, mood and cognition first. Then you might find in the second month that your skin is a bit more hydrated.

The other thing that affects how long supplements take to work is that some nutrients just take longer to build up before they can perform their particular job. A really common example is when we're thinking about blood oxygen and haemoglobin levels. It can actually take several months to make a new red blood cell. So, if you have low levels of iron you might not be noticing that your energy has changed immediately. This is because you've got to build up the levels of iron since it was low and you've also got to wait for your body to manufacture the red blood cells. In this case you might get subtle changes early on and then feel much better and recover as the months go on.

Can increasing dosage affect how long supplements take to work?

I very often find that when we have a new customer or someone that hasn't used our products before, they have a low level of a nutrient. Since they haven't been able to get any advice they've probably been taking the wrong dose in order for them to get them to where they need to. This is why consistency with taking your products each day is important in affecting how long supplements take to work. It is also essential to get the right dose. If you're not sure what to take, we have a really brilliant free consultation service over video. This is your chance to talk to a nutritionist in my team about your health, your symptoms, your goals and discover the right levels of nutrients for you to take. I hope this has been really helpful and resolved the common question: how long do supplements take to work.