If you’re watching this video, you probably take some form of supplement every single day.
Do they actually work?
Do they improve your health?
Do they actually contain what they claim to?
Are there any dangers of supplements?
In this video, we take a deep dive into the world of supplements and look at the murky science of multivitamins to see if all the tall claims actually stack up…or if you’re just wasting your hard earned cash..
[Applause] This is not a magic fix it is a multi-billion dollar product an expertly crafted piece of marketing aimed straight into your brainstem trying to devour your hard-earned cash in exchange for Better Health quietly influenced manipulating misleading and harvesting you and the bad news is no one is coming
To save you but all hope is not lost how much money do you feed to the supplement Beast you can save yourself put down that supplement and arm yourself with knowledge if you’re watching this video there’s a good chance you take a supplement every single day and that’s
In no small part thanks to numerous voices pushing Pro supplement agendas in the media and online without having enough rigorous scientific evidence to support their claims this episode is brought to you by athletic greens athletic greens is an all-in-one vitamin mineral probiotic drink we’re going to be talking about athletic greens ag1 for
Example have you heard the one about vitamin C curing colds well that’s down to one man a scientist named lonus Pauling you see Pauling won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1954 he was also an expert in the field of molecular biology and in 1970 wrote a widely influential book suggesting that vitamin
C could prevent the common cold this piece of work quadruple sales for vitamin C leading What vitamin manufacturers called the Linus paing effect but paing didn’t stop at the cold after that he believed that vitamin C could treat just about every disease Under the Sun from the flu to cancer in
Fact these claims were featured in a Time magazine article in 1992 pauling’s reasoning for vitamins being so amazing and a cure all revolved around one basic thing antioxidants you see antioxidants are naturally found in various foods that we consume which contain things like vitamin C an antioxidant can offset
Cellular damage and has a role to play in aging and disease so the idea was that more vitamins lead to more antioxidants which could lead to less disease unfortunately when put to the test numerous Studies have concluded that vitamin supplements that Supply antioxidants don’t really live up to
These bold cancer curing claims despite this Theory being utterly debunked many still hold on to this nebulous belief that supplements are magical why the Allure of quick fixes and health shortcuts I mean who wouldn’t be tempted by brain boosting formulations or the promise of super immunity or better gut
Health so are supplements worth it or are you just wasting your money what is the truth let’s start with some facts over 2third of adults worldwide regularly take a multivitamin or dietary supplement the global supplement Market size is valued at roughly 152 billion with a b and that number is expected to
Double by 203 exactly when did our supplement Obsession spiral out of control Our Story begins in the middle of the 18 Century a scientist named James lint studied a weird phenomenon which often occurred at Sea Sailors who largely seemed healthy suddenly reported to feel weak and tired over time the
Affected individuals started bleeding from their gums and from their skin they experienced a disease which became fatal in its final stage scurvy back then people had different theories as to why scurvy broke out some thought it was a lack of morals or caused by the sea or even a lack of exercise but
Unfortunately a couple of Portside push-ups or singing drunken pirate songs wasn’t quite enough to reverse this Insidious condition James lint however had heard of an alternative Theory which stated that the absence of fruit and vegetables fresh fruit and vegetables leads to scurvy so he decided to give some scurvy patients oranges and lemons
And found unbelievably that they recovered there was clearly something inside lemons and oranges which cured scurvy and in the early part of the 20th century scientists found out what exactly it was vitamins vitamins cannot be made by the human body in sufficient amounts so we need to consume some from
The the diet as well the thing is in the early 20th century poor nutrition was extremely common in the western world for example in the United States in the midst of the Great Depression in the 1930s so many people had vitamin deficiencies that health problems were rampant stuff like heart failure nerve
Dysfunction and skin problems to name just a few the company behind Alka-Seltzer brought the first multivitamin to Market in 1940 this was buil as a one a day pill to boost your health and in fact it worked they filled the gaps in people’s nutritions and drastically improved their health and
Now that scientists knew how to make vitamins artificially in a laboratory by the 1950s mass production of vitamin started and people all over the world began taking vitamin supplements but over time we started figuring out how to get more of the necessary nutrients in our diets and now pretty bad
Deficiencies of vitamins and minerals are quite rare the whole supplement and multivitamin industry was born because we were literally starving and malnourished but nowadays we have more of a food waste problem than a scar the issue we’ve got more food than we know what to do with so if you’re not
Nutrient deficient and starving for the average person do multivitamins really provide any extra benefit if you look on the back of lots of these supplement packages they often contain more than 100% of certain nutrients more is always better right let’s take a look at powdered greens for example people are
Obsessed with these things like athletic greens not least because their favorite influencer or podcaster uses them and promotes the hell out of them on podcast Instagram Tik Tok Facebook and YouTube so what is the deal with these things other than the fact that it’s got a bilious green color they claim to offer
The Perfect Blend of wellness and convenience in one simple drink that has everything you need to become a better version of yourself so they claim if you take a look at the ingredients list on athletic greams it seems pretty convincing the powder is jam-packed with a variety of vitamins and other healthy
Sounding stuff you got spirulina alpha alpha papaya fire spinach broccoli pineapple kelp Rosemary green tea extract milk thistle and a whole host of other nutrient dense foods and extracts all of this is then dried and processed into a fine powder that you can shove inside your face hole and feel better
About yourself and take a good chunk out of your bank balance too the numbers on the nutritional value charts are just a tad wild as well in one scoop of athletic greens for example they have 880 of the recommended daily intake of vitamin B12 6 60% of B7 58% of vitamin E
525 of vitamin C to name just a few now I’m just a simple Doctor Who apparently doesn’t get taught enough nutrition in medical school but this feels a bit Overkill looking at just the ingredients it’s not hard to see why people are latching onto these kind of things as
Potential silver bullets for their health a crutch an easy way to paper over cracks in a diet that’s riddled with holes because of busy stressful lives the problem is your body tends to to get rid of any excess water soluble vitamins and nutrients by peeing them
Out so you’re just peeing out your hard earn cach with a lot of the stuff in these supplements also your body stores the extra fat soluble vitamins things like vitamin D E A and K in your fatty tissues surely that’s a good thing for a rainy bad diet day not always there’s
Always the problem of vitamin Mega dois if you consistently take the mega does over weeks or months especially with fat soluble vitamins these vitamins will build up in your body and eventually cause toxicity or other health problems for example vitamin D normally helps your body absorb calcium and it’s one of
The few supplements that is actually backed with some pretty decent evidence and is something worth taking particularly in the winter months if you live in a Northern hemispheric country or if you have darker skin to optimize your vitamin D levels but too much vitamin D could cause an excess buildup
Of calcium in your blood called hypercalcemia consuming too much vitamin D can cause symptoms such as excessive thirst or needing to urinate more frequently and constipation and in very severe cases it can cause seizures excess vitamin A for example can cause severe headaches blood Vision nausea dizziness muscle aches and even problems
With coordination when the body receives too much vitamin C it normally converts it into oxalate which exits the body via the urine and then you’re at higher risk of forming oxalate crystals AKA kidney stones so if you’re taking vitamins just be mindful of Mega doing it’s also no surprised that supplement companies are
Now flaunting the fact that their products contain probiotics this follows the worldwide gut health craze because they know that we know that we need good bacteria for our microbiome to flourish so just to sweeten the deal and loosen our pear strings that they throw in a couple of strains of bacteria athletic
Greens say their green stuff contains two species of bacteria but the problem is most overthe coun of probiotics fall under the category of supplements and not food they are not regulated by most Food and Drug authorities strictly anyway so this means that a supplement company whoever they might be may not
Actually be including the amounts listed on the label or even guarantee that the bacteria are alive and active at the time of use now the general consensus in the scientific Community is that vitamin supplements don’t actually do very much unless there’s already a nutritional deficiency and this is where it starts
To get really interesting because it means that it matters who is taking the supplements in 2018 Cochran a hugely respected organization that reviews medical research published a review of all the available evidence on the use of Omega-3 supplements during pregnancy they found that supplementing with Omega-3s during pregnancy reduced the
Risk of having a premature baby by 11% and reduced the risk of having a very premature baby by 42% for that reason they recommended that women pregnant be advised to supplement with Omega-3s every day from the 12th week of pregnancy in addition to folic acid supplementation to support the
Development of their baby’s nervous system and similar to how multivitamins helped to patch up the nutritionally incomplete diet of the 1940s they also seem to make a big difference in prison a number of studies over the past 30 years has found that providing prisoners with vitamins and mineral supplements
Reduces Violence by a third compared to Placebo now exactly why this phenomenon takes place is still up for debate but one hypothesis is that if you don’t have enough nutrients in your diet then you can’t create brain chemicals neurotransmitters like serotonin so we’ve pretty firmly establish that supplements might be beneficial for some
People at a greater risk of nutritional deficiencies or where there an additional nutrient demand that includes families on low incomes pregnant women or anyone on a restricted diet that involves cutting out whole food groups for example vegans vegetarians people with celiac disease those on restricted very low calorie diets or people who’ve
Had bariatric surgery and the boring solution is that most of us would just be better off to take steps to improve our overall diets that doesn’t mean you need to bin everything in your cupboards or pantry and start from scratch but it simply means means that you can maybe
Start by adding a piece of fruit or vegetable to your normal meals maybe throwing in a sliced banana or apple on your porridge sprinkling some nuts on your salad or whack in a half a can of lentils to your evening pasta over time this approach can improve your diet
Quality without much effort there’s a lot of nutritional smoke and mirrors coming from most of these supplement companies and the influence and marketing of the top brands are unmatched Wellness culture definitely has long had a dark side including a very seedy underbelly of scammers fake Health gurus and and wellness pseudo
Scientists ripping people off with false claims of magic cures and many lowquality supplements we see today are just modern iterations of the same thing that’s been happening for decades and centuries just with less magic now athletic greens does use actual vegetables to make their magic green dust apparently which is better of
Course than the scammers out there but they’re still using the classic supplement marketing Playbook the idea that your health can be improved by buying a product specifically theirs the reality ity is if you want to get your body into good health it’s a holistic change involving multiple pillars of
Health including sleep movement the food you eat mental health regulating stress social contacts Etc if you’re seeing claims for a product that seems too good to be true it probably is often users of social media platforms can create fads for products with little to no proven benefit consider a plant extract called
Berberine one user documented dramatic weight loss that she claimed was due to this supplement resulting in it being dubbed nature is AIC a reference to the prescription diabetes drug which is also used for weight loss a close look at the scientific literature however reveals scant evidence that burine can help shed
Pounds even mainstream products from reputable retailers may lead consumers astray let’s take a hypothetical immunity boosting supplement the label would display the word eonia prominently along with a picture of the plant and if you look at the back of the box you’ll find that the product also probably
Contains vitamin C along with a statement like contributes to the normal function of the immune system while that is factually true it doesn’t necessarily mean that this particular product will give your immune system a boost or to protect you from your next CoD it is simply stating vitamin C’s role in the
Human body really shitty misleading marketing often the language on labels is ambiguous enough to circumvent the regulations they might say things on the packaging like endurance or Clarity and that’s really attractive I want Clarity too and they don’t need any science to back up those vague claims for many
Botanical ingredients there is scant evidence that they benefit our health in the way that they claim to and the evidence cited is often based on animal studies or human trials with just a few participants I certainly do believe that some supplements can be complimentary to a healthy diet but there’ll never be a
Substitute for one in many cases you may find it better to save your money or invest it in more fruit vegetables or fish and your body and your bank balance may be healthier as a result if you want more evidence-based information on how to improve your health with plenty of
Good science and bad jokes make sure you grabb a copy of my book this book May save your life if you enjoy this deep dive into the murky world of supplements do all the juicy YouTube stuff you need to and join me as I continue to cut through online and give you
Some unfiltered signs
