Protect Yourself and Report the Latest Frauds, Scams, Spams, Fakes, Identify Theft Hacks and Hoaxes
There are affiliate links on this page.
Read our disclosure policy to learn more.
Translate this page to any language by choosing a language in the box below.
Beets? Seriously? And even grapefruit.. if you're over 50, do you remember "Fatburner Grapefruit 45" from UHF commercials in your youth? The supplement industry is massive in America, and every week there seems to be a new superfood found to provide miraculous health benefits... and a number of supplements made from it for sale. According to the National Institutes of Health, dietary supplements are a $37 billion-a-year business in the U.S.,Yet, researchers at the University of Minnesota conducted a study of the effects of making multivitamins, probably the most benign of all health supplements and found that women who took supplemental multivitamins died at rates higher than those who didn't. And the Cleveland Clinic research found that men who took vitamin E had an increased risk of prostate cancer.
ABC News reports:
Dr. Lee Green, a family physician at the University of Michigan, said it's a misconception that supplemental vitamins can lead to better health and help prevent disease.
"You should stop trying to look for health in a pill," Green said. "Health is not found in pills. It's found in good food and regular exercise. Why didn't vitamins deliver on the promise of better health? Because it was a false promise."
Snake oil salesmen of the Wild West are a familiar icon of scammers, but some Neanderthal was probably bartering colored dirt to his fellow troglodytes, grunting how it would make them live longer if they ate it. One of the most famous cases of supplement and vitamin scammers is Dr. Linus Paulding.
Or cure cancer. Shocking to some of you, but yes it is true that it won't. Dr. Paulding was a scammer. At least 15 studies have proven that vitamin C doesn't prevent, treat or cure the common cold. None of the FDA, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Dietetic Association, the Center for Human Nutrition at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, nor the Department of Health and Human Services recommend vitamin C supplements for the prevention or treatment of colds. Dr. Paulding even claimed that mega doses of Vitamin C could cure cancer, citing a Scottish study by a Dr. Cameron. It was later shown that the cancer victims Cameron had treated with vitamin C were healthier at the start of therapy, which accounted for the higher cure rate in the group, not vitamin C.
Well, shorten lives and cause cancer for a start. And less reputable supplements made in filthy labs in third world countries can make you sick or kill you with e. coli.
Some actually INCREASE the risk of cancer. WebMD reports:
For men taking these vitamin supplements, the risk of lung cancer was nearly doubled. For men who smoked, the risk was between three and four times higher, the study found.
"High-dose B6 and B12 supplements should not be taken for lung cancer prevention, especially in men, and they may cause harm in male smokers," said study lead author Theodore Brasky. He is a research assistant professor at Ohio State University.
Other studies show that Vitamin E (Tocopherol) Based on solid evidence, taking vitamin E supplements does not affect the risk of lung cancer" To the contrary, the National Cancer Institute found that Selenium and Vitamin E supplements increased cancer risks:
The additional data show that the men who took vitamin E alone had a 17 percent relative increase in numbers of prostate cancers compared to men on placebo. This difference in prostate cancer incidence between the vitamin E only group and the placebos only group is now statistically significant, and not likely to be due to chance.
Men taking selenium alone, or vitamin E and selenium, were also more likely to develop prostate cancer than men taking placebo, but those increases were smaller and are not statistically significant and may be due to chance. Updated results of SELECT were published in JAMA on October 12, 2011 (3).
Here's a brief list (by no means complete) of some supplements to avaoid and the evidence against them
Why do we see endless exaggerations and outright lies about in the supplement indusdry. Simple: there's money to be made in it. And plenty of gullible people, eager to improve their health... or treat a life-threating condition... willing to try the latest miracle. The scammers know that it will take time to prove their miracle food or supplement doesn't. ANd the US government does not regulate supplements, a fact the scammers use to their advantage. So, we have to wait years until the ineffectiveness of their supplement - or the dangerous effects - become obvious.
At the best, they are ALL exaggerations; but many are actually dangerous.. For signs of an obvious scam:
DON'T take supplements. They won't work. The pushers take an effect found in a lab test and distort it into a must-have superfood. The truth is; there is no such thing as a superfood. Food and supplements won't make you healthy, but the following will... and doesn't cost anything!:
For a story about 10 of the Worst Food and Supplement Scams of 2016, click here
The FDA has compiled a list:
Yes, doctors do actually recommend some specific supplemenst for certain groups of people who either can't get it in their diet, or whose medical condition requires more: These groups and an example of the needed supplement are:
But keep in mind, the doctors choose the supplement, the potency, NOT the patient. Dont' think you're a doctor and self-medicate.