Why is there a supplement craze if they don’t even work?
Planet Money
NPR
4.6 • 30.5K Ratings
🗓️ 5 June 2026
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today's show, we tell the story of a century-long battle between the U.S. government and … you, the people, blinded by your love of a magic pill.
We’re talking about protein powders, pre-workouts, creatine, stuff for gut health, joint health, vitamin C, turmeric supplements. All that. You might not wanna hear this.
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This episode was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez and Jane Black. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, edited by Marianne McCune, and fact checked by Sierra Juarez with help with Vito Emanuel. It was engineered by Robert Rodriguez with help from Jimmy Keeley. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Planet Money from NPR. |
| 0:05.9 | You may have noticed we're living in the midst of a supplement craze. |
| 0:09.5 | People are phytamaxing, biohacking so they can live longer. |
| 0:14.2 | Everyone's talking about gut health. |
| 0:16.2 | I feel very aware of my gut health right now. |
| 0:18.1 | It's true. |
| 0:18.8 | The supplement industry is a $70 billion |
| 0:22.2 | industry in the United States and growing fast. We are talking protein powders, pre-workouts, |
| 0:28.7 | probiotics, fat burners. There's joint health, gut health. There's glowing skin. I love glowing skin. |
| 0:34.1 | Better sleep, stronger nails, all of that. Seventy-five percent of Americans take supplements. A lot of people. Yeah, like 100,000 different options you can |
| 0:42.6 | choose from. Now, supplements are everything from creatine or bovine colostrum, sometimes put in a |
| 0:49.3 | martini to your daily vitamin C gummies or echinacea. And because there are so many supplements out there, we kind of wanted to see, like, |
| 0:57.5 | how easy it is to get a new supplement pill or gummy on the market. |
| 1:01.4 | Like, could we make a supplement? |
| 1:03.4 | Okay. |
| 1:03.9 | What if we want to make a supplement? |
| 1:06.2 | Okay. |
| 1:06.6 | Like a real NPR Planet Money branded supplement. |
| 1:13.4 | Awesome. |
| 1:14.0 | This is Frank Canton, the chiseled CEO of SMP Nutra Supplement Manufacturing Partner. |
| 1:19.4 | They make supplements. |
| 1:20.6 | Capsules, tablets, powders, soft gels, gummies. |
... |
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