President Donald Trump\u2019s health officials want you to take your vitamins.<\/p>\n
Mehmet Oz, the nominee to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, has fed calves on camera to tout the health wonders of bovine colostrum on behalf of one purveyor in which he has a financial stake. Janette Nesheiwat, the potential surgeon general, sells her own line of supplements.<\/p>\n
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services, said he takes more vitamins than he can count \u2014 and has suggested he\u2019ll ease restrictions on vitamins, muscle-building peptides, and more.<\/p>\n
Their affection for supplements might lead to tangible consequences for Americans\u2019 health regimens. Late in the 2024 campaign, Kennedy claimed the federal government was waging<\/a> a \u201cwar on public health\u201d by suppressing a vast array of alternative therapies \u2014 many of them supplements, like nutraceuticals and peptides.<\/p>\n In February, Trump announced<\/a> the \u201cPresident\u2019s Make America Healthy Again Commission\u201d with Kennedy at the helm, calling for \u201cfresh thinking\u201d on nutrition, \u201chealthy lifestyles,\u201d and other pathways toward combating chronic disease. Spokespeople for Kennedy did not reply to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n Supplements can be beneficial, particularly in aiding fetal development or warding off anemia, said Pieter Cohen, a general internist at the Cambridge Health Alliance, who researches supplements. \u201cI recommend supplements routinely,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Still, \u201cthe majority of use is not necessary to improve or maintain health,\u201d and due to only light regulations, supplement makers may make claims about their benefits without sufficient evidence, Cohen said. \u201cNo supplement needs to get tested or vetted by the FDA before it\u2019s sold.\u201d<\/p>\n Consumer watchdogs, regulators, and researchers have reported cases of finding traces<\/a> of lead<\/a> and<\/a> other toxins<\/a> in supplements<\/a>. And a 2015 analysis<\/a> from a team of federal health researchers attributed about 23,000 emergency department visits annually to supplement use. (The Council for Responsible Nutrition, the industry\u2019s lobbying group, challenged the findings<\/a>, arguing some visits were due to over-the-counter and homeopathic medicines that should not have been included.)<\/p>\n Nevertheless, many Americans are ready to buy in<\/a>. Internet forums populated by biohackers<\/a>, weight lifters, and enthusiasts of alternative medicine, along with supplement producers, applauded Kennedy\u2019s elevation to health secretary. Many express hopes that he\u2019ll loosen what they perceive as unwarranted restrictions on these products.<\/p>\n The Natural Products Association saluted Trump\u2019s health nominees as a victory for \u201chealth freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor the first time in our industry\u2019s history, the top healthcare political appointees think it is important that Americans have the right to use nutritional supplements,\u201d wrote Kyle Turk<\/a>, the association\u2019s vice president for government affairs.<\/p>\n The worlds of supplement users and the Trump team overlap substantially when it comes to being skeptical of the traditional health system.<\/p>\n Supplement use is part of \u201ca broadening sort of health populist movement,\u201d said Callum Hood, the head of research at the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that researches online disinformation, pointing to influencers who criticize conventional public health measures and offer alternatives like supplements, powders, or peptides.<\/p>\n To many supplement enthusiasts, Kennedy\u2019s views align with theirs \u2014 particularly his dislike for Big Pharma and Big Food, which he characterizes as corrupt<\/a>, profiting from Americans\u2019 ill health.<\/p>\n Kennedy promotes supplements as a key part of good health. In a prerecorded interview aired this month, amid a growing measles outbreak that started in West Texas, he said doctors had had \u201cvery, very good results\u201d by treating those patients with cod liver oil, which can be delivered in pill form, along with a steroid and an antibiotic. (Separately, he wrote in a Fox News op-ed<\/a> that parents should discuss the vaccine with their doctors, adding, \u201cThe decision to vaccinate is a personal one.\u201d)<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do is really to restore faith in government and to make sure that we are there to help them with their needs and not particularly to dictate what they ought to be doing,\u201d Kennedy said in a Fox News interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kennedy spoke of federal officials delivering vitamin A to affected communities \u2014 a treatment he pushed in past remarks as chairman of the anti-vaccine group Children\u2019s Health Defense.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is the cure for measles?\u201d he told an audience<\/a> in 2021 at an Amish country fair in Pennsylvania. \u201cChicken soup and vitamin A. And neither of those things can be patented.\u201d<\/p>\n The World Health Organization advises people who contract measles to take vitamin A, which can prevent blindness and death \u2014 but it also strongly urges all children be vaccinated against the disease.<\/p>\n While the image of natural wellness has long evoked organic supermarket-patronizing, liberal types, supplement use is bipartisan \u2014 and now slightly more popular with Republicans. A December poll from Ipsos and Axios found that 63% of Republicans take supplements daily or most days, versus 58% of independents and 52% of Democrats.<\/p>\n Supplement companies sometimes explicitly court right-wing customers. In the days before Trump\u2019s inauguration, the brand Nugenix posted an ad on the social platform X for its testosterone supplement with the president\u2019s trademark red hat perched on the bottle, bearing the slogan \u201cMake Your T-Levels Great Again.\u201d (Adaptive Health, Nugenix\u2019s parent company, did not respond to requests for comment.)<\/p>\n Some industry observers think the shift rightward happened during the pandemic. \u201cDuring the covid era, Democrats became the party of science and establishment,\u201d said John Roulac, a California-based supplements entrepreneur. In his telling, the party and especially its elected officials were more likely to trust the FDA and other big institutions \u2014 and to discount any potential contribution to health from supplements.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder RFK, you have people associated less with pharmaceutical drugs and more with healthier lifestyle choices, whether that\u2019s eating organic food or using herbs or taking vitamins,\u201d Roulac said.<\/p>\n Kennedy and others in Trump\u2019s orbit have found a particularly warm reception among some of the biggest supplement evangelists: influencers, who often promote personal responsibility, in the form of vitamins and other products, as the key to health \u2014 and have provided plenty of airtime in recent years for Trump\u2019s newly minted health officials.<\/p>\n On popular podcast host Lex Fridman\u2019s show in 2023, Kennedy accepted praise<\/a> for being in \u201cgreat shape\u201d and attributed it, in part, to his vitamin regimen. \u201cI take a lot of vitamins,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t even list them to you here because I couldn\u2019t even remember them at all.\u201d<\/p>\n In November, Oz endorsed Kennedy\u2019s nomination on his TikTok channel \u2014 and then, in his next post, told viewers<\/a> they need \u201can alphabet soup\u201d of vitamins to protect their brains and power their organs.<\/p>\n Oz, who at the time had not yet been named to lead CMS, pointed viewers to a \u201ctrusted source\u201d of vitamins: iHerb.<\/p>\n Federal ethics rules generally bar public officials from using their office for financial gain. Last month, in a letter to the health agency\u2019s ethics official<\/a>, Oz disclosed that he is an adviser to iHerb and holds a financial stake in the company. He wrote that, if he is confirmed, he plans to resign and divest from iHerb, as well as recuse himself from policy matters directly involving the company \u201cuntil I have divested.\u201d<\/p>\n Oz\u2019s Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for March 14. A spokesperson for Oz did not reply to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n Nesheiwat, Trump\u2019s pick for surgeon general, has touted BC Boost, a combination of vitamins promising to toughen one\u2019s immune system and rev energy. The supplement \u2014 which advertising claims was formulated by Nesheiwat herself \u2014 bears her name and portrait on the package.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter years of educating my patients, now I made it a little easier to get all the nutrition you need to live strong and stay healthy,\u201d reads a marketing quote attributed to Nesheiwat.<\/p>\n The surgeon general, considered \u201cthe nation\u2019s doctor,\u201d does not set policy but rather acts as a spokesperson for public health. During the Biden administration, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy outlined the ills from alcohol, loneliness, and social media.<\/p>\n Nesheiwat, whose financial disclosures are not yet public, did not reply to an inquiry to her website, nor did an HHS spokesperson reply to a request for comment.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear what moves<\/a> the administration might take to boost supplements. Industry officials say they hope the government will make it easier for everyday consumers to use health savings accounts to buy vitamins and other products. The FDA could also decide to allow manufacturers to make more aggressive claims about their wares\u2019 health benefits.<\/p>\n Contrary to Kennedy\u2019s claim of a \u201cwar on public health,\u201d in recent years the supplements industry has seen its fortunes grow, and attempts to increase regulations have fallen short amid pressure from supplement makers.<\/p>\n According to the Nutrition Business Journal, revenues for the supplement industry surged during the pandemic, as customers became \u201cmore invested in their health,\u201d said Journal analyst Erika Craft. Revenues have continued to increase since then, outpacing earlier industry expectations and boosting product sales to some $70 billion per year, she told KFF Health News.<\/p>\n One FDA attempt to put more stringent regulations \u2014 like registration \u2014 on businesses, during the 1990s, was defeated soundly after the industry and its clients lobbied Congress.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was one of the largest campaigns to Congress imaginable,\u201d David Kessler, the FDA commissioner at the time, said in an oral history<\/a>.<\/p>\n Grace Sparks, a survey analyst at KFF, the health policy research, polling, and news organization that includes KFF Health News, provided research assistance for the Ipsos-Axios poll.<\/em><\/p>\n KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. 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