{"id":613420,"date":"2026-09-27T14:18:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T14:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/613420\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T14:18:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T14:18:23","slug":"most-dietary-supplements-do-nothing-for-healthy-people-says-top-doctor-this-is-how-the-wellness-industry-flourishes-regardless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/613420\/","title":{"rendered":"Most dietary supplements do nothing for healthy people, says top doctor \u2013 this is how the wellness industry flourishes regardless"},"content":{"rendered":"

Towards the end of his brilliant new book Make Me Well, Xand van Tulleken, the British medical doctor and broadcaster, finally reaches saturation point in his quest to understand the world of wellness.<\/p>\n

Research on the book has taken him across the world, to China, the USA and Europe to meet the makers, marketeers, entrepreneurs, journalists, lobbyists and scientists involved in this highly lucrative but frustratingly opaque, even cynical industry of supplements, hormones, blood testing and longevity.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d set out to find \u201cevidence about how much wellness products might help us to achieve the things we want to achieve\u201d with our bodies: more energy, better sleep and a healthier gut. He says he wanted them to work.<\/p>\n

But at this late stage of this quest, when he\u2019s approached to help promote a supplement that claims to fix the serious heart rhythm condition, atrial fibrillation<\/a>, he finally cracks. He\u2019s made his mind up and says he\u2019s no longer open-minded about them.<\/p>\n

\"\"Xand van Tulleken dived deep into the wellness world \u2013 and didn\u2019t like what he saw. Darren Skeene<\/p>\n

\u201cTo get me interested in a new supplement now would be almost impossible,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of the thousands on the market, I have identified a handful that have some evidence of effectiveness [creatine, beetroot juice, caffeine]; the rest have led me a merry dance through a blizzard of poor quality and fraudulent science. I think there is a pattern here: the supplements don\u2019t work.\u201d <\/p>\n

There are some, such as B12 for vegans, that can help make up a genuine shortfall. But for already healthy people, he argues that there is precious little evidence that supplements<\/a> will do what their makers say they will do.<\/p>\n

And in some cases, the mega doses of supplements such as vitamin D, available on the high street, may actually be harmful.<\/p>\n

What does that say about the $146bn a year worldwide supplements business and us as consumers who are all too happy to part with our cash?<\/p>\n

Here are some of the ways and reasons we\u2019ve become so hooked and why the supplements industry has gained such runaway momentum, according to van Tulleken.<\/p>\n

The industry trades in hope
\n\"\"Buying supplements is an investment in ourselves and the promise they bring is almost limitless in supply. Getty Images<\/p>\n

One of the big reasons why the supplements industry has grown so large is because we, as consumers, desperately want them to work.<\/p>\n

A central hook of van Tulleken\u2019s book sees him traipse around an enormous wellness trade show in Barcelona, where he\u2019s overloaded with thousands of companies hawking their wares.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew the evidence suggested that supplements don\u2019t work, but I wanted them to work,\u201d he writes. \u201cIt would be great if this cheap stuff that\u2019s perceived to be pretty safe could just pick me up and sort me out.<\/p>\n

\u201cHope is the main product being shipped around the world in barrels by the supplement industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Podcasts and influencers may have filled a doctor-shaped hole
\n\"\"Joe Rogan (right) has the power and reach to influence millions through his podcast. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Many of the world\u2019s most popular podcasters \u2013 Joe Rogan, Andrew Huberman and Steven Bartlett to name three \u2013 are immersed in the wellness and supplements industry, influencing listener behaviour through the guests they interview and the products they advertise (or even sell themselves).<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo decades ago,\u201d writes van Tulleken, \u201cit would have been unthinkable to most people to spend three hours doing a deep, technical dive into the medical and scientific literature for a general audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it turns out that this is exactly what huge numbers of people in the USA and UK want, possibly because accessing medical care from our doctors is so difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our understanding of a supplement is skewed by \u2018publication bias\u2019<\/p>\n

One of the most fascinating chapters of the book is dedicated to vitamin D \u2013 the \u2018sunshine vitamin\u2019. <\/p>\n

The vitamin helps to keep bones strong and it’s one of the few that the NHS in the UK suggests people take as a supplement: in this case, in the autumn and winter, when we have less exposure to sunlight.<\/p>\n

There was once hope that its influence on health went well beyond this, which led to an explosion in research into these apparent game-changing effects. This, as chronicled in the book, subsequently imploded when it came largely to naught.<\/p>\n

A major influence on leading researchers up the garden path of vitamin D was the idea of publication bias: the absence of published negative results happens because the lack of a positive finding is seen by a researcher to be a failure. <\/p>\n

It can lead to false hope being created, when the truth is hidden away on the laptops of scientists, who are worried it\u2019ll damage their careers.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time I see a doctor on the news talking about a study showing how great supplements are, I ask myself: \u2018what wasn\u2019t published?’\u201d writes van Tulleken.<\/p>\n

A positivity bias at work in journalism<\/p>\n

Similar to the publication bias of scientific papers, van Tulleken writes about how, with the rise of online news, a positive story on a wellness product will generate far more views and dwell time than a negative one.<\/p>\n

The obvious result of that is that more positive stories are commissioned at the expense of negative ones, regardless of how compelling the evidence is.<\/p>\n

Supplements are the perfect product for influencers to sell online
\n\"\"The ubiquity of supplements has everything to do with them as a product. Getty Images<\/p>\n

As the world of online influencing has grown to unprecedented levels, supplements are a common denominator in how many influencers make their money.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo other product in the world is, or could possibly be, as perfect as supplements for influencers to sell,\u201d writes van Tulleken, and offers several reasons why. They have a great price point \u2013 affordable but not too expensive \u2013 are easy to store and ship, offer big profit margins, and are quick to make and consumable.<\/p>\n

They also enjoy the benefits of association with medicine, but with a far, far lower bar to clear to make it to market.<\/p>\n

Industry puts a finger on the scales of biomedical research<\/p>\n

Collagen supplements, which proponents say can improve joint health and improve skin health, are big business, and are profiled in a chapter called \u2018Turning waste into gold\u2019 (those collagen capsules are coming from the leftover carcasses of the meat industry).<\/p>\n

Many positive studies on collagen supplements exist in the literature, so why then aren’t they being backed by any \u201cserious medical organisation\u201d, ponders van Tulleken?<\/p>\n

He shows how a 2025 review study, when taking industry funding of the studies into account, found no evidence that collagen supplements prevent skin ageing. In other words, always look at who\u2019s funding a study \u2013 it\u2019s rarely out of benevolence.<\/p>\n

Manipulating study design, publication bias and outright fraud are three ways that this is made possible, he adds.<\/p>\n

Data and claims that are hard to decipher<\/p>\n

Few people outside of science and journalism spend their time reading scientific papers and studies, but even if you want to, you\u2019ll often be confronted by insurmountable paywalls that make it difficult to scrutinise the claims you\u2019ve seen from influencers on social media.<\/p>\n

“If such claims are built on the result of a study designed and conducted by contract research companies who exist to gin up a product, then you\u2019re going to want to know that,” writes van Tulleken.<\/p>\n

Wellness\/supplements and health\/medicines are often conflated \u2013 but one has a much higher bar to clear to reach market than the other<\/p>\n

At one particularly entertaining, if troubling, juncture of the book, van Tulleken \u2013 in China learning about the workings of the supplements industry \u2013 pretends to be a businessman wanting to create his own supplement. <\/p>\n

It’s startling how easy he finds it to put anything into a tablet, or onto the box. The only limits appear to be your tolerance for legal jeopardy in the country where it’s being sold (which won’t be in China). <\/p>\n

To get approval for a new medicine, a drugs company has to spend much time and resource proving its effectiveness, including pre-clinical trials, multi-stage human trials and regulatory approval in whatever country or territory they’re looking to market it. <\/p>\n

For supplements, there’s no such high barrier to entry: you don’t have to prove it works or is safe, nor back up the claims you’re making.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Towards the end of his brilliant new book Make Me Well, Xand van Tulleken, the British medical doctor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[134,111,139,556,69],"class_list":["post-613420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nutrition","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}