“This is like throwing the kitchen sink into a powder,” said Dr. Pieter Cohen, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School who studies supplements.
Will these powders make me healthier?
If you’re already following a reasonably balanced diet and aren’t deficient in any vitamins or minerals, you probably don’t need to take multivitamin supplements like these, the experts said.
“Superfood powders” often contain far more than the daily recommended amounts of many vitamins and minerals — one serving of AG1, the powder made by Athletic Greens, for example, supplies more than 550 percent of the daily recommended amount of vitamin E, and 1,100 percent of the daily recommended amount of biotin.
For the most part, your body can handle these excess nutrients, said Dr. Gerard Mullin, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Medicine who specializes in gastroenterology. Your kidneys will break down and dispose of most of them, he said. But certain vitamins, like vitamins A, D, E and K, can cause harmful effects if they reach high enough levels, he added — though this is rare.
As for supplemental probiotics, there isn’t clear evidence that already healthy people will become healthier by taking them regularly, Dr. Nestle said. And prebiotic supplements might encourage regular bowel movements and promote gut health, she added, but similarly, the science on their necessity for most people is far from settled.
Many adaptogens like ashwagandha and ginseng have been used for centuries in Eastern medicine, in part for their purported stress-relieving properties. But high-quality evidence on whether they can do things like stabilize your mood or alleviate anxiety is lacking, Dr. Cohen said.
“There have been no clinical trials showing how effective they are, just infomercials,” Dr. Mullin added.
