Why is there a supplement craze if they don’t even work?

Summary of Why is there a supplement craze if they don’t even work?

by NPR

34m•June 5, 2026
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Overview of Why is there a supplement craze if they don’t even work?

This Planet Money episode investigates why the U.S. supplement industry is booming despite little evidence that supplements make healthy people healthier. The hosts explore how easy it is to create and market a supplement, why the industry has grown into a $70 billion market, and how weak regulations, consumer demand, and placebo effects keep the business thriving.

The Supplement Boom

  • The supplement market includes protein powders, pre-workouts, probiotics, fat burners, vitamin gummies, creatine, collagen, green tea extract, and more.
  • Roughly 75% of Americans take supplements.
  • Sales surged during COVID and have continued growing, fueled by:
    • wellness influencers
    • “biohacking” and longevity culture
    • distrust in institutions, pharma, and government
    • the appeal of a “natural” alternative to medicine

How Easy It Is to Make a Supplement

The episode begins with an experiment: could Planet Money launch its own branded supplement?

What the manufacturer said

  • A supplement manufacturer quickly walked them through:
    • choosing effects like focus, energy, fat burning, or hair growth
    • combining ingredients such as creatine, lion’s mane, collagen, and green tea
    • picking flavors, colors, and product form

The startling part

  • A custom supplement order could be launched with a relatively modest upfront cost.
  • Even easier: there are already hundreds of stock formulas that can simply be relabeled.
  • The company could legally say things like:
    • “supports metabolism”
    • “promotes memory”
    • “helps maintain healthy blood sugar”
  • But not:
    • “cures”
    • “prevents”
    • “treats”
    • “diagnoses” disease

The Core Regulatory Problem

The episode’s central point: supplements live in a regulatory gray zone.

What supplements are not required to do

  • They do not need to prove they work before being sold.
  • They do not need to prove they are safe before being sold.
  • Their labels can make broad structure/function claims as long as they avoid explicit disease claims.

What that means in practice

  • A bottle saying “supports brain health” may have no solid evidence behind it.
  • Fine-print disclaimers like “not evaluated by the FDA” signal that claims are not verified.

Why Regulation Is So Weak

The hosts trace the history of failed attempts to regulate supplements:

  • In the 1960s and 1970s, the FDA tried to warn consumers that routine supplement use lacked scientific basis.
  • Consumer backlash was intense.
  • In the early 1990s, a high-profile FDA raid on a vitamin clinic triggered a massive anti-regulation campaign.
  • The supplement industry mobilized public letters, store protests, and even a Mel Gibson ad urging people to “protect your right to use vitamins.”
  • The result was the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), which gave supplement makers broad freedom and left the market largely unregulated.

The “Glowing Jellyfish” Loophole: Prevagen

A major example of how the system works is the story of Prevagen.

The setup

  • The product was based on a synthetic protein derived from a glowing jellyfish.
  • The company claimed it could improve memory.

How it got to market

  • The FDA questioned the ingredient’s safety.
  • The company worked around this by first using the ingredient in a food product.
  • Food ingredients can be self-certified as GRAS (“generally recognized as safe”).
  • Once in food, the ingredient could then be used in a supplement.

What happened next

  • The company sold the product for years.
  • People reported side effects including chest pain, seizures, and strokes.
  • The FTC later sued over false advertising.
  • The company lost, but the product remained on shelves with vaguer marketing.

Are Supplements Safe?

The episode emphasizes that even familiar-looking supplements can be risky or misleading.

Common issues found by experts

  • Some products contain:
    • heavy metals like lead or arsenic
    • too much of an ingredient
    • too little of what the label says
    • none of the listed ingredient at all
  • Testing groups like ConsumerLab have found major inconsistencies in products such as turmeric, elderberry, echinacea, and green tea supplements.

Potential harms

  • Certain supplements, especially concentrated herbal extracts, have been linked to liver damage.
  • A 2017 study found a meaningful share of liver toxicity cases tied to herbal and dietary supplements.
  • Over time, supplement-related liver failure increased significantly.

What the Experts Actually Think

The episode interviews critics of the industry, including nutrition scholar Marion Nestle.

Their view

  • There is no good evidence that supplements make healthy people healthier.
  • If you are deficient in something, or pregnant and need folic acid, supplements can help.
  • For most healthy adults, they are usually unnecessary.

But they also caution against overstatement

  • Many supplements are probably not harmful in a major way.
  • The bigger issue is that they often do nothing while still making bold claims.

Why People Still Buy Them

Even when people know the science is weak, they keep taking supplements because:

  • they want control over their health
  • the products feel harmless and proactive
  • they may produce a real placebo effect
  • the ritual of taking them can make people feel better

The episode’s conclusion is that supplements often sell:

  • hope
  • identity
  • reassurance
  • and the feeling of doing something for your health

Key Takeaways

  • The supplement industry is huge because it is easy to enter and hard to police.
  • Supplements do not have to prove effectiveness before being sold.
  • Weak rules and clever labeling allow products to imply benefits without making direct medical claims.
  • Some supplements are harmless, some are risky, and many are unproven.
  • Consumer demand remains high because supplements offer a powerful mix of wellness marketing and placebo comfort.

Bottom Line

The episode argues that supplements are less about proven medical benefits and more about a powerful combination of lax regulation, clever marketing, and consumer desire for a simple fix. Even when the evidence is thin, the market keeps growing because people still want the promise of better health in a bottle.