Feeling run down after the festive season? Want to get those resolutions off to a flying start? Have a pill, have two. Hell, why not take five! Just look at how much you’re saving with the New Year, New You transformation package.
Supplements are big business. The UK market was estimated to be worth £670m in 2009 and growing rapidly. According to the Food Standards Agency (FSA), nearly a third of people in the UK take a supplement on most days. Common supplements include vitamins, weight-loss supplements, fish oils, supplements for arthritis, body-building supplements, supplements for colds, for energy, for hair loss, sexual dysfunction, stress, depression and sleep.
While some supplements are necessary: folic acid is important for pregnant women, for example, and Nice recommends vitamin D supplements for certain at-risk groups, evidence for the efficacy of the vast majority of others is patchy, to put it mildly. In an article published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Enough Is Enough: Stop Wasting Money on Vitamin and Mineral Supplements, five medical experts from John Hopkins School of Public Health and Warwick University, who had carried out a systematic review of randomly controlled trials involving more than 400,000 participants, concluded that “the case is closed – supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with (most) mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit and might even be harmful. These vitamins should not be used for chronic disease prevention. Enough is enough.”
It won’t make the slightest difference. We believe because we want, or sometimes need, to believe. We feel powerless in the face of poor health, intractable external demands or our seeming inability to stick to a sensible diet plan. Sometimes we don’t even believe, that raspberry ketones, for example, will transform our bodies for us, but wouldn’t it be great if they did? It’s a lottery-ticket mentality. In it to win it. You never know, and besides what harm can it do?
In the case of raspberry ketones, it seems that there is potential for considerable harm. In 2013, 24-year-old Cara Reynolds died after taking an overdose of them. The following year, the FSA deemed raspberry ketones an “unauthorised novel food”, (one compound, used in flavouring, remains allowable) requiring them to go through an approval procedure by the UK’s advisory committee on novel foods and processes (ACNFP). Despite this, raspberry ketones supplements remain widely available in the UK. In an article in the Telegraph, one young woman explained why, despite the death of Cara Reynolds, she takes them: “I have a degree in science and a masters in cellular pathology – I know the consequences. But, at the same time, I’m very unhappy with the way I am and would go for anything.”
People will call it laziness. But for me the issue is deeper and more complex. Supplement peddlers prey on our vulnerabilities. They prey on our desire for change and on our lack of confidence in our own ability to effect it. A couple of years ago, I was feeling extremely rundown and low. I had mouth ulcers, blisters on the rims of my eyes. Every morning I woke exhausted and lacking in motivation. I was supposed to be working; my half-written novel was way over deadline. Instead, I found myself on a supplement website, filling my basket with miracle cures, “brain food”, “focus formula”, “stress buster”, “ultrasmart”.
By the time I’d finished, the total came to more than £200. I was entering my credit card details when something finally clicked. “I’ll just check the evidence,” I thought. “Better be on the safe side.” Ten minutes later, I emptied my basket. You know what? It gave me just the boost I needed.
