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| From The Conversation, possibly a tough pill to swallow, and which might have expired (dated last year). I've been saying for years that "natural" doesn't mean shit. Well... maybe. Shit is, after all, natural. So is poison ivy, tobacco, hemlock, and cockroaches—to name just a few. According to a 2023 survey, 74% of U.S. adults take vitamins, prebiotics and the like. Proud resident of the other 26% here. The business of supplements is booming, and with all the hype around them, it’s easy to forget what they actually are: substances that can powerfully affect the body and your health, yet aren’t regulated like drugs are. For some, regulations are an unnecessary burden. This is because there's no one alive today who remembers when food companies loaded their products with sawdust and arsenic in an effort to be more profitable. This is not just because they ate arsenic, but because it was over 100 years ago. They’re regulated more like food. Well, at least there's some regulation, right? No one can just put out a product and make bullshit claims, right? Stop laughing. It’s important to consider why so many people believe supplements can help them lead a healthier life. While there are many reasons, how supplements are marketed is undeniably an important one. If you exaggerate in your marketing for your new book, worst that can happen is someone's out a few bucks and maybe some wasted time. If you lie about your food or pill product, people can get sick. In my years following the industry, I’ve found that three mistaken assumptions appear over and over in supplement marketing. I'll touch on each one, but obviously, there's more at the link. 1. The appeal to nature fallacy The appeal to nature fallacy occurs when you assume that because something is “natural” it must be good. I touched on this one above. I've questioned the distinction between "natural" and "artificial" before (we are part of nature, so therefore anything we create is also natural), and the line between them isn't bright and shiny. To be clear, “natural” does not equate to “better,” but that’s what the marketing wants you to think. And, for the most part, they've been wildly successful at that mind control. 2. The belief that more of a good thing is always better This one's easy enough to debunk: one shot of tequila is a very good thing. A hundred, and you're dead. If you don’t have a deficiency, consuming more of a particular vitamin or mineral through a supplement won’t necessarily lead to health benefits. That’s why supplement skeptics sometimes say, “You’re just paying for expensive pee” – since your body will excrete the excess. The article mentions vitamins C and D, but completely ignores the well-documented dangers of overconsuming Vitamin A. I'm not an expert, though, and the author is, so don't take my word for it. 3. The action bias Finally, the supplement industry likes to capitalize on the idea that doing something is better than doing nothing. This may or may not be a cultural thing; I don't know. I do know that, in many cases, doing nothing is a far superior choice. Like with work, for example. When it comes to supplements, taking them isn’t necessarily better than not. So, how do we know what's a proper dose? Well, like I said, I avoid them entirely, but that may not be the best course of action, either. I'd say "ask your doctor," but there's a shocking number of people who distrust experts because they're experts. And, to be fair, they are human, so they can be wrong—just not as often as those who are not experts. It's kind of like being scared shitless of flying while thinking nothing of driving, even though the latter is many orders of magnitude more likely to kill or injure you. And you can't just go on the internet and "do research," because the internet is full of misinformation, especially YouTube. There are good sources, but again, people tend to believe what they want to believe (or what marketing makes them believe) over dry scientific data. I do what I can to avoid being part of the problem. At least, I don't have a profit motive, which seems to drive a lot of misinformation: "You can't trust doctors or science, but you can trust what I say because I need money!" People used to think that education would fix this and similar problems, but I've lost any hope for that since the pandemic started. I'm tempted to just leave it alone, but it still bugs me on some level that people still fall for this shit. |
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