‘Most Supplements Don’t Work’

Alex Hutchinson writing for Outside:

Whenever I see someone touting the merits of, say, neuroscientist and podcaster Andrew Huberman’s $370 supplement stack, I’m tempted to go full PubMed on them. You really think the herbal extract Fadogia agrestisis going to boost your “healthspan and muscle performance” based on an obscure study of male albino rats published by the Asian Journal of Andrologyback in 2005? A grand total of zero human trials is what Huberman means by a “robust foundation of science”?

One of the supplements in questions is the much hyped Ketone-IQ which is all over the podcast advertising circuit currently and just sponsored Freetrail’s ‘Trailrunner of the Year‘ awards which incidentally Freetrail partnered with the Pro Trail Runners Association on. The PTRA is no stranger in calling out as what they see as unfit sponsorship deals as they did with UTMB over their Dacia title sponsorship.

Would it be reasonable to expect PTRA to take a stand here and denounce these “snake oils”?

As an aside: It’s kind of funny that Outside is playing “this hyped product isn’t working” game as they were all in on NFTs a couple of years ago, and in fact the Outside.io marketplace is still up.

As a second aside: Years ago I was offered to review CBD products on Singletrack. And I chose to do it. So rest assured, I too am not immune to the questionable product placement in hope of advertising dollars. PS: Some of the stuff was really nice… but don’t think it did anything that it claimed to do, and I don’t think any of these brands are still around.