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I am sitting in a small room painted emerald green as a nurse counts vials she will need to fill with my warm red blood. I have no needle phobia, and I am a living, breathing woman in America, so I am used to being poked and prodded. Still, she and I exchange a meaningful glance over the 13 glass tubes. “It looks worse than it is,” she tells me.
This assessment is taking place at The Lanby—a “holistic primary care” provider with annual fees starting at $5,000. Like most 30-somethings, I have the nagging feeling that I should be more committed to achieving optimal health. And like most 30-somethings who have stacked obligations like Jenga blocks, there is a limit to how much I am willing to do. I have not come to this place to be told to exercise more or to switch to a Paleo diet. I want a pill. Perhaps several.
Me, and most people you know. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half of adults (and more women than men) take a supplement, and the proportion is trending upward. There are now around 100,000 different supplements—which the FDA defines in vague terms as ingestible products meant to augment the diet—on the market in the United States. Such interventions run the gamut from familiar add-ons like the humble vitamin to witchier formulations: microbiome “boosters”; sleep chews; tablets meant to reduce stress, bloat, and “toxins” in the bloodstream; and capsules formulated to speed metabolism. And that’s not counting injectable peptides or hormones or mushroom elixirs, all of which further stretch the rather elastic definition of a “supplement.” Most undergo no FDA approval process.
But not even the sober and sensible among us are immune to their quick-fix promises. An acquaintance (the daughter of two doctors) told me she turned to vitamin gummies after gobs of her hair fell out postpartum. She trawled the drugstore aisles for a product high in follicle-boosting biotin and has been housing an Olly supplement called Undeniable Beauty ever since. Is it working? Her nails seem healthier, and the biotin is water-soluble, which means any excess she ingests gets flushed down the toilet.
This friend did her research on the ground, reading labels in an actual store—a quaint approach, according to The Lanby’s cofounder Chloe Harrouche. “Most people are sourcing their supplements through Instagram,” she explains. “They’re like, ‘Well, if it worked for them….’ ” Around 55 percent of Americans report getting health information from social media, which can of course be rife with misinformation. (Supplements do not cure measles!) Lack of access to affordable health care in America cannot be helping matters. Over 100 million Americans do not have a primary care provider.
I have never missed an annual checkup, but I still wonder about the potions and pastilles I scroll past. Should I be subscribing to Grüns, the brand of “superfood gummies” that purports to combine a multivitamin with adaptogens, herbs, antioxidants, prebiotics, “super mushrooms,” and the nutritional equivalent of whole vegetables and fruits? Could I live to be 100 and nimble on AG1, a greens powder endorsed by neuroscientist and podcaster Andrew Huberman? Should I actually read one of the dozens of articles I’ve glimpsed about creatine, a compound said to boost muscle mass and improve cognition? (Yes, according to Abbie Smith-Ryan, a professor of exercise physiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “It’s not the end-all-be-all magic supplement a lot of people are selling, but it can have impactful results,” she says.) Is this quest all about some unfulfilled longing for the Flintstones multivitamin that I was barred from taking as a child? (“Eat your broccoli, and then we’ll talk,” my mother told me.) Or could there be one encapsulated mineral standing between me and perfect focus with Jennifer Lawrence hair?
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