These aren't your grandfather's horse pills
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Allie Carl/Axios
New supplements aren't just boasting vitamins and minerals; they also promise to be beautiful, delicious and vegan.
Why it matters: People are relying on marketing messages instead of their personal health needs to pick and choose what to take.
Threat level: Most people aren't regularly talking with their primary care physician about supplements, and even if they did, doctors and many health care professionals "have no clue here," Taylor Wallace, CEO of Think Healthy Group and editor of Journal of Dietary Supplements, tells Axios.
- "I always suggest consulting with a registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) about supplement regimens to make sure you aren't getting too much," Wallace says.
What they're saying: Glossy marketing messages can also be a red flag, says Pieter Cohen, associate professor at Harvard Medical.
- Cohen, who has been researching the supplement industry for decades, says he knows the dangers of supplements and how labels can be wrong about ingredients and amounts.
- "If the supplement label suggests it will have some immediate or really any health benefit, I recommend not taking it."
"Farm to capsule" — that's what people really believe, "Why Wellness Sells" author Colleen Derkatch said in a recent podcast.
- "That these are plants that are grown in very kind of bucolic fields with little down-home, families farming, and somehow they kind of magic their way into capsule form.
- "And the similarities to pharmaceuticals become a lot murkier, right? They are pills and bottles. They are synthesized in labs. There's a lot of correspondence between the two things."
Third-party verification is one way consumers can check to see if the new supplement their TikTok feed is raving about is actually what it says it is.
- Groups including NSF and USP offer verified product directories.
- Always tell doctors prescribing you medication what supplements you're taking to make sure they don't react poorly to one another.
The bottom line: No matter what they look like, supplements are processed pills with a business behind them.
