What Do You Trust?

 

“We will only produce natural medicine in its highest form with the quality of the ingredients delivered in a professional nutraceutical form that are effective as pharmaceutical drugs but without the toxic side effects.”

 

We are being lied to on a daily basis. They hide the truth to avoid embarrassment, political consequences or the loss of market share. You would think the guilt of not being totally upfront would bother them, but their conscience over time becomes calloused and lying is just accepted as part of doing business.

 

In the so-called health business vitamin manufactures are desperate to have a piece of the gummy market share—which is estimated at 25% of total vitamin sales, according to Nutrition Business Journal—but who bears the responsibility for quality standards? According to the latest results from NOW Foods 12 of 30 brands tested failed to meet label claims from which “four of the brands would not meet label claim on their expiration dates, stating that vitamin C decreases by approximately 20% per year based on prior experience.”[1] Naturally, it is not only about the expiration date. Five brands claimed that their gummy contained 1,000 mg or higher of vitamin C but “each of these five brands contained less than 2 mg total Vitamin C, which is far under 1% of the label claim.”[2]

Rather than producing supplements for the benefit of the consumers, companies rather look for ways to get their attention, like Gen Z’s who, apparently, have pill fatigue. “Consumers — especially younger ones — aren’t just tired of swallowing tablets and capsules. They want to actually enjoy their daily dose of wellness. (…) Gen Z is all about gummies, chewables and shots” because they “struggle with taking pills”[3]—we know, life is cruel. To entice this sector, they created a new category called candyceuticals to separate themselves from nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. What is next, crackceuticals? That would open the door to a new market share in a hurry.

Wrong directions, bad marketing and untrue potency claims seem to be less of a concern compared to life threatening outcomes, especially if there are no consequences when thousands of children have been hospitalized after being poisoned by vitamins and minerals in recent years. “Over just 3 years, the federal Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Kids’ Inpatient Database recorded vitamin and mineral toxicity as a cause of hospitalization for 1961 children. (…) About one third of the hospitalizations involved extremely severe illness from toxicity. Median length of stay rose from 3 days in the first years analyzed, 2016 and 2019, to 4 days in the last year analyzed, 2022 (P < .01), but the worst cases were more likely to have stays exceeding 8 days. Notably, 56% of the toxicities followed intentional ingestion. Teens aged 13-17 years accounted for 57% of the cases, and 73% were female.”[4] Just because something is sold over the counter, it does not mean that it is safe, especially when companies cut costs anywhere they can.

Meanwhile, quality vitamins are in need due to our lifestyle and eating habits that do not meet the nutritional requirements. “Research published in Annals of Internal Medicine[5] found that low concentrations of vitamin B12 and folate in both mothers and fathers during conception and early pregnancy are associated with a higher risk for birth defects in their offspring. (…) fathers contribute not only their haploid genomes but also their epigenomes to the offspring…. Chen and colleagues’ findings further indicate the importance of preconception paternal nutritional status in mitigating adverse offspring outcomes, particularly nutrients related to one-carbon metabolism, including B12 and folate.”[6]

Vitamin D deficiency is another problem. It “may be due to the fact that modern lifestyles reduce cutaneous synthesis — due to factors such as more indoor time, less sun exposure, sunscreen use, skin aging, obesity, malabsorption, certain diseases, or the use of certain medications.”[7] But even though deficiencies exist, they need to be addressed with proper approach and tailored to the needs of the individual.

Vitamins could also be used as adjunctive treatments in sepsis. According to WHO, “sepsis is a life-threatening condition that happens when the body’s immune system has an extreme response to an infection, causing organ dysfunction . The body’s reaction causes damage to its own tissues and organs and it can lead to shock, multiple organ failure and sometimes death, especially if not recognized early and treated promptly.”[8] Research focuses on vitamins C, D, B1 (thiamine), B9 (folate) and B12 but the results are still inconclusive. Vitamin C has antioxidant and microcirculatory effects, but trials have produced inconsistent mortality results; the early enthusiasm surrounding vitamin C/thiamine/hydrocortisone combinations was not confirmed by later trials such as VITAMINS, ACTS, CITRIS-ALI, and LOVIT.

Vitamin D may have the most promising role, particularly in severely deficient or critically ill patients, although, again, appropriate blood concentrations and dosing appear important. Thiamine may be useful primarily when deficiency is present, while evidence for folate and B12 is considerably less convincing. An important caution is that low vitamin blood levels during sepsis may be a consequence or marker of severe illness rather than proof that supplementation will improve outcomes. Overall, the evidence supports correcting documented deficiencies and investigating individualized nutritional and metabolic therapy, but it does not currently justify routine high-dose vitamin supplementation for every patient with sepsis.

Some supplements in the health industry have long held the opinion that they were safe but when studied, they were not. A good example is xylitol—they claim that high levels raise the risk of heart attack. According to the newest findings, “[p]eople with xylitol levels in the highest quartile were observed to have substantially higher risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (defined as death, myocardial infarction or stroke) than those with xylitol levels in the lowest quartile.”[9] I have a hard time accepting these observational studies, especially because we do not know what the health of the people studied were, if they were in good physical shape or if there were issues which they do not disclose in this study. They suggest though that there is a dose-dependent relationship between the amount of xylitol in the blood and cardiovascular event rates.

Xylitol is used in many toothpastes, and it is also being used to prevent dental cavities as a natural sweeting agent. I see they are vilifying many natural health products, especially those that are gaining market share replacing the big pharmaceutical brands when in fact they should clean up their own backyard first filled with fluoride, colours, sugar and dyes. The study might be truthful, so caution should be given, but I am sure there are plenty of flaws. One observational study leaves a lot to the imagination.

Medicines must not be perceived as candy. We will only produce natural medicine in its highest form with the quality of the ingredients delivered in a professional nutraceutical form that are effective as pharmaceutical drugs but without the toxic side effects. If it means missing 25% of the market share, so be it. We will not compromise our therapeutic quality to sell higher volumes, instead, we will focus on the other 75% and heal the nation one person at a time.

 

References:

[1] Gholam, Devon. 2026.

[2] NOW Foods. 2026.

[3] Collias, Nick. 2025.

[4] Phend, Crystal. 2026.

[5] Chen, Hongyan et al. 2026.

[6] Nichols, Sam. 2026.

[7] Simón, Clara. 2026.

[8] WHO. 2024.

[9] European Society of Cardiology. 2026.