New Age of Nutritions

Today, dietary supplements or complementary health-care products, as they are officially called in Australia - encompass a dizzying array of vitamins, minerals and herbs, as well as other compounds that have been extracted or created from natural sources.

Since most are available without prescription, supplements are available in every supermarkets and pharmacies. Most shopping centers have health-food sections that stock a wide selection of supplements. You can even order supplements from the catalogues or the Internet. Do you know that the annual supplements sales in Australia are estimated at close to $2 billion, and in New Zealand at $150 million? One crazy industry, huh?

You can see the public interest in supplements through the media, which carry regular reports about them. With all the attention and the sky high sales of supplements, there's no surprise that millions of people around the world, including doctors and scientist, have come to believe that substances such as garlic, echinacea and grape seed extract, along with vitamins and minerals, are as beneficial to health as low-fat foods, exercise and aspirin. That's right, supplements are as good! Cool, huh?