inspiring canadians to live better.

healthing leaf

inspiring canadians to live better.

healthing leaf
get healthing in your inbox with the morning checkup and weekender newsletter!
home / 世界杯决赛2022

the wellness con: why we're spending billions in a pointless bid to feel better

from crystal eggs to oxygen chambers, the social media bandwagon is pushing treatments with no scientifically proven benefits

by kate spicer, the telegraph
published jan 29, 2023
read time 8 minute read
join the conversation
read time 8 minute read
join the conversation
justin bieber, with his wife, hailey, appeared in a youtube video touting the benefits of his iv nad+ treatment. angela weiss/afp via getty images
dr. mohammed enayat is in a provocative mood. speaking to an audience at hum2n, the chelsea health, wellness and biohacking clinic he founded, the gp describes seeing patients with all manner of low-level inflammatory conditions, from skin irritation to brain fog and fatigue: “has everyone got long covid?” he asks. after the talk, i challenge his provocation. “i wanted to start a conversation,” he says. “we don’t know if (these conditions are) due to covid or environmental toxins.” either way, hum2n has some answers, he says, “from supplementing glutathione to hyperbaric oxygen therapy or iv nutrients.”
on the hum2n website, i go shopping to enhance my post-covid well-being. ten sessions in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber cost $4,225; individual iv drips start at $485 a pop. and intravenous “blue laser light,” which activates “a photochemical response” that “reduces inflammation,” is $650 for six sessions. “red light” therapy is a relative bargain at $80 a pop. that’s $5,800-worth of wellness-boosting treatments just as a starter.
the benefits of many of these treatments still exist only in the realms of the theoretical. which is not to say they are harmful, nor, indeed, that they aren’t beneficial, just that as with a lot of wellness treatments, the science is vague.
powered by
canadian centre for caregiving excellence
story continues below
dr. stephanie baker is a senior lecturer in sociology at city, university of london, and an expert in wellness culture and medical misinformation. her book wellness culture is the latest to describe how this small, earnest movement, founded by medical doctors last century, has grown into an economy worth, according to the consultants mckinsey, at least $2 trillion worldwide, and which relies on people feeling vulnerable and like they could always be, somehow, better.

‘the worried well’

real money is to be found in serving a demographic known as “the worried well.” who spend on anything from scented candles and bath oils to high-tech kit costing thousands. “we only enter the nhs (britain’s national health service) if we are ill, it is never about enhancing our health,” says baker. turning the adjective “well” into a noun is to add a price for being better. the anxieties of the better-off are being monetized.
take, for example, nad+. hum2n claims iv infusions of this coenzyme, which binds with proteins to become niacin vitamin b3, responsible for revitalizing cells from the inside out, can boost energy and even treat addiction. a course of 10 usually costs about $5,000. science is rather more cautious. there have been small studies in humans for conditions including, most frequently, neurodegenerative conditions — but results are a mixed bag. one review concluded: “long-term side-effects of nad upregulation … are harder to quantify and may exist.”
powered by
obesity matters
story continues below
i first saw iv nad+ punted on the instagram pages of britain’s leading wellness influencer, davinia taylor. pop star justin bieber is also a “fan” and once had an nad+ drip on youtube. taylor is a former soap actress who launched biohacking community willpowders, which sells supplements. is she concerned about its efficacy, given the lack of long-term trials or clinical evidence? “not at all,” she says, “it makes me feel 100 years younger.”
would it not be worth waiting for the verdict of the u.k.’s evidence-based medicines and health care products regulatory agency, mhra? “that will take 20 years and i can’t wait that long; i’m a busy mum and ceo and perimenopausal. i don’t want to be normal, i want to be optimal.”
in 2019, professor stephen powis, nhs england’s medical director and professor of renal medicine at university college london, said: “at a time when health misinformation is running riot on social media, it is reckless and exploitative to peddle ineffective and misleading treatments. the nhs position is that so-called ‘party drips’ are ineffective and potentially harmful.”
wellness relies on celebrities rather than scientific journals to spread its message. it even has its own poster boys and girls, such as dr. mark hyman, who is, like enayat, a medical doctor and functional medicine practitioner. hyman has written 10 bestselling books and is a friend to the rich and famous. like enayat, he references studies and articles in peer-reviewed journals.
story continues below
earlier this year, i watched hyman bounce around on stage dressed like a rock star at a wellness festival for a high-net-worth audience. his first words: “there is a new miracle drug. it’s called food.” so far, so inspiring. but the talk soon departed from endorsement of simpler and free lifestyle changes and spiralled into costly interventions, such as total body scans (cost $3,475), exosome therapy, telomeres and heterochronic parabiosis.
parabiosis? popular with mao tse tung, apparently. it’s tapping into the consenting veins of vital young people. “thankfully, no need to sacrifice young children,” hyman deadpans. “now that there is such a thing as therapeutic plasma exchange.” the audience members were rapt. with hum2n, enayat hopes to mimic the success of mark hyman’s ultrawellness centre in massachusetts.
gwyneth paltrow, founder and ceo of goop, has come under fire for the validity of some of the alternative treatments she supports.  patrick t. fallon / afp via getty images
gwyneth paltrow, founder and ceo of goop, has come under fire for the validity of some of the alternative treatments she supports.  patrick t. fallon / afp via getty images patrick t. fallon/afp via getty images
gwyneth paltrow is the world’s best-known wellness influencer. she started her goop site as a little newsletter in 2008. it was valued 10 years later at $345 million. baker says that paltrow was initially just “recommending restaurants and talking about things she did. then she met a venture capitalist at a dinner, and he invested, seeing the profit to be made from her influential voice and recommendations.”
story continues below
paltrow is notorious for flogging wellness nonsense. she has claimed, wrongly, that bras cause breast cancer, for example, and that women should steam-clean their vaginas. they really should not. she was forced to pay $205,750 in civil penalties for claiming that her smooth $115 crystal eggs made of jade or rose quartz would “increase vaginal muscle tone, hormonal balance, and feminine energy in general.”
baker says the more insidious powers on social media are not the big hollywood names-turned-wellness sellers such as paltrow, but what she calls “microcelebrities” with a devoted following online.
baker started thinking about the complex relationship wellness has with empirical truth when she followed the case of belle gibson, whose stories of recovering from an inoperable brain cancer thanks to alternative therapies, natural medicine and diet, turned out to be false. she never had brain cancer at all. then there was jessica ainscough, who had a genuine cancer diagnosis, and glossily charted her life as the “wellness warrior.” sadly, ainscough’s decision to reject medical intervention in favour of the gerson diet, which includes daily coffee enemas, failed, resulting in her dying shortly after her mother also died from breast cancer having also rejected the oncology department in favour of wellness cures. immediately after ainscough died, david gorski, professor of surgery and oncology at the wayne state university school of medicine, wrote that, “she, with the noblest of intentions … did harm and likely led some cancer patients down the path of quackery and preventable death.”
story continues below
as baker says, “this idea about a hero’s journey, having psychological pain or a physical condition and somehow overcoming it … within wellness culture, too often that stands in for professional expertise. it’s comforting and reassuring for people, that’s why they relate, but this is where the problems lie. there is no way of testing the truth of their claims.”
and, of course, within wellness there are real healers, real experts and scientists. there are good therapies and things that work.
at the end of the summer, i went to a talk on menopause and the microbiome, with a panel discussion led by tim spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at king’s college london and co-founder of the personalized nutrition company zoe. the event was in the penthouse of a smart private club and hosted by indi, a whole foods supplement company. in the audience were professional nutritionists and wellness influencers.
i was given a free 28-day supply of indi’s “mind” powder, which they describe as a “nootropic.” i took a shot and noticed that it improved my focus, much the same as coffee might but without the edginess. at $75 a tub, however, i’ll have to stick to caffeine.
at the drinks afterwards, a nutritionist recommended wellness influencers for me to follow, including rubio fuerte. his bio reads: “public health nutrition, nutritional scientist, university of vienna,” which sounds reassuring and, at first, his posts seem fair: “break your sugar addiction;” “stop pretending obesity is healthy.”
story continues below
the tone is bizarre, though. it is bullying, mocking, sarcastic, patronizing. in videos, he leans toward the lens with his thick, muscular arms folded, and speaks in a german-accented monotone. “birth-control pills are to make women pay taxes disguised as liberation;” “western medicine is a rockefeller fraud — educate yourself about natural remedies.”
with every post, he signs off by inviting people to message him for a private nutritional consultation. a spokesman for the university of vienna’s department of nutritional sciences tells me, “rubio fuerte is not working for the university of vienna. we have already contacted him and instagram to get him to take down his claim of affiliation … there was no reaction.” he also declined multiple interview requests from me.
fuerte has 160,000 followers, some with huge followings of their own. baker sighs at the mention of fuerte’s name. his “playbook,” she says, “resonates with the ideologies of many far-right groups, and that robotic tone is a classic indoctrination method.”
at that one event i experienced the spectrum of the good, the bad and the expensively indifferent, all offered under the wellness umbrella. i wonder how the highly credible spector feels, having to occupy this space in order to communicate his research and his science-based health app, zoe.
story continues below
he says, “i am comfortable we are contributing to the conversation as evidence-based scientists and nutrition professionals; we ensure we make our scientific principles transparent for all to see. the wellness industry can propagate worrying myths, like a carnivore diet (very high in meat) is the key to longevity, which will have a negative impact on the people it reaches. the wellness space needs more evidence-based science to drown out the noise.”
the wellness economy can support human health and alleviate people’s suffering. it can also harbour expensive, unregulated and potentially dangerous products and players. “wellness culture,” says baker, “is thriving in a time of anxiety, a time stripped of meaning, with a reduced significance of religion. it gives people hope, meaning and purpose. but it is crying out for some kind of regulatory framework. anyone can share health advice, no matter how ill-qualified or dubious their motives. we need to find some immunity to all the nonsense out there.”

our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our newsletters here.

comments

postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. we ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. we have enabled email notifications—you will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. visit our community guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.