The Truth About Supplements

These pills and powders come with pretty promises, but is it safe to keep popping them without supervision?

In 2015, a seemingly revolutionary hair supplement brand called SugarBear Hair blew up on the Internet – you may even remember photos of the Kardashian clan biting on a blue hair growth-boosting gummy bear as one of the first influencer marketing campaigns on Instagram. Six years on, Jen Aniston is speaking of drinking collagen, Posh Beckham is popping pills with Omega-3 forever-lasting youth, and Gwyneth Paltrow has launched her own brand of drinkable antioxidants. Clearly, the wellness market is no longer in the shadows. Celebrity-approved supplements have become ubiquitous, and the outbreak of the global health crisis has further cemented their place in our health and beauty cabinets. Ever since the Covid-19 crisis broke out in 2020, there’s been a sharp spike in Google searches for immunity-boosters and preventative healthcare in general. In fact, the dietary supplement market in India was valued at a whopping 3,944 million dollars in 2020 (approx.), and global online sales for these grew by 40 per cent too. There’s a mad scramble to get our hands on these promise-the-world pills for health and vanity, but the question is – how much do they really help?

UNDERSTANDING SUPPLEMENTS