How do I tell which supplements affect your body's ability to produce it?

[Replicon]

Many/most supplements are really things that are naturally produced in your body. If you keep taking extra because you want to REALLY benefit from it or whatever (creatine is really the best example I can think of), won't your body stop producing it? I know some supplements are like that, and I guess some aren't, but how can one tell?

[Five]

I don't think it says on the back of the packet. You probably have to research it for each individual packet. To be honest, if you are going to be buying/taking a supplement you should be researching it anyway, so you shouldn't need a list of naturally produced supplements.

[Lobo]

Just use your common sense. Protein, carbohydrates, fats are all present in foods in significant quantities so taking supplements like whey, maltodextrin, fish/flax oils, etc. isn't going to affect your body in the manner you're describing. Creatine is found in meat (because animals' skeletal muscles use similar, if not identical processes to our own) but only in small amounts, so it's possible that supplementing with relatively high amounts could affect the body's mechanism for producing it, but frankly no-one actually knows. Like Five says, you should know the ins and outs of each supplement you are taking/intend to take so there's no need for a list like this anyway, even it was known for certain which supplements had this effect.

[jan]

I think a study showed that the production of creatine wasn't affected after at least 9 months of usage, but I can't remember where I read it.

.. To be certain though, just cycle it a month at a time.. One month on, two weeks off etc...