The Tamesis
I sat in a small room painted emerald green as a nurse counted the vials she needed to fill with my warm red blood. I don’t have a needle phobia, and I’m a living, breathing American woman, so I’m used to being poked and prodded. Still, she and I exchanged meaningful glances at the 13 glass tubes. “It looks worse than it is,” she told me.
The evaluation was done at The Lanby, a “holistic primary care” provider with annual fees starting at $5,000. Like most people in their 30s, I have a nagging feeling that I should be more committed to optimal health. Like most people in their 30s, they have a mountain of obligations and there’s a limit to what I’m willing to do. I didn’t come to this place to be told to exercise more or switch to the Paleo diet. I want a pill. Maybe a few.
Me, and most everyone you know. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half of adults (more women than men) take supplements, and the rate is rising. Currently, there are approximately 100,000 different supplements on the U.S. market, which the FDA vaguely defines as ingestible products designed to enhance the diet. Such interventions range from common add-ons like humble vitamins to more magical formulas: microbiome “boosters”; sleep chews; pills designed to reduce stress, swelling and “toxins” in the blood; and capsules to speed up metabolism. That doesn’t include injectable peptides, hormones or mushroom elixirs, all of which further stretch the rather elastic definition of “supplement.” Most have not gone through the FDA approval process.
But even the sane, sane ones among us are not immune to their promises of quick fixes. An acquaintance (the daughter of two doctors) told me that she started taking gummy vitamins after losing large patches of her hair postpartum. She scoured the drugstore aisles for a product rich in follicle-boosting biotin, and she’s been stocking up on an Olly supplement called Undeniable Beauty ever since. Is it effective? Her nails look healthier, and biotin is water-soluble, meaning any excess biotin she consumes will be flushed down the toilet.
Chloe Harrouche, co-founder of The Lanby, said the friend did the research on the ground, reading labels in actual stores, which was a strange approach. “Most people buy supplements through Instagram,” she explains. “They’ll say, ‘Well, if this works for them…'” About 55 percent of Americans say they get their health information from social media, which can be rife with misinformation. (Supplements don’t cure measles!) The lack of affordable health care in the United States doesn’t help either. More than 100 million Americans do not have a primary care provider.
I never miss an annual physical, but I’m still curious about the potions and lozenges I roll through. Should I subscribe to Grüns, a brand of “superfood gummies” designed to combine multivitamins with adaptogens, herbs, antioxidants, prebiotics, “super mushrooms” and the nutritional equivalent of whole vegetables and fruits? Can I live to be 100 and stay agile by taking AG1, a green powder endorsed by neuroscientist and podcaster Andrew Huberman? Should I really read one of the dozens of articles I’ve seen about creatine? Creatine, a compound said to increase muscle mass and improve cognition? (Yes, says Abby Smith-Ryan, a professor of exercise physiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “It’s not the one-size-fits-all miracle supplement that a lot of people are selling, but it can produce impactful results,” she says.) Is this quest all about some unfulfilled craving for that Flintstones multivitamin I was forbidden to take as a kid? (“Eat your broccoli and then we’ll talk,” my mother told me.) Or is there an encapsulated mineral standing between me and the perfect focus of Jennifer Lawrence’s hair?
