This story is a part of our series exploring the benefits and cost of vitamins to our health and hip pocket.See all 6 stories.
The promise of an enhanced version of ourselves, one with better hair, skin, nails, sex drive, sleep, muscles and energy awaits all of us. We just need a little extra support to help us achieve it. And that little extra support, we are told, is contained within shiny supplement bottles.
Once vitamins and supplements targeted those with diseases of deficiency. Today, none of us can escape the pervasive and often seductive marketing.
"'Optimisation' has become a lucrative marketing approach, often used to promote a wide range of unproven products, including supplements with little to no solid evidence for safety or effectiveness," says dietitian and nutrition researcher, Danielle Shine. "It reinforces the idea that you're never quite enough as you are - that you always need another pill, powder, or capsule to become your healthiest 'best self.'"