Over the past few years the term fake news has led us to be incredibly quizzical of the information that we receive, as we live in a world of increasingly fabricated information.
However, despite news feeds from around the world being populated with numerous articles focusing on what Trump did or didn’t say, information regarding health is still believed to be the worst form of fake news and misinformation.
According to a report conducted by a government watchdog, multiple advertisements for “memory-boosting” supplements made illegal claims to cure or prevent diseases like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. While this may seem like a scam that only a rare few may fall for, this phenomenon of faking health supplement information has even been committed by many large and respected giants within this industry such as GNC.
The country’s largest retailer of supplements, agreed to pay $2.25 million in a settlement with the Department of Justice. Though GNC did not claim any wrongdoing, the company did not provide suitable checks to ensure their products contained what they claimed. This was part of a large federal crackdown on supplements that contain hidden drug ingredients.
With so many unreliable sources of information or honest health supplements it can be hard to trust any supplier within this $39 Billion industry.
However, one company hopes to change this negative ambiguity regarding surrounding health supplements by providing an honest and reliable source for all health needs.
Nature’s Aide provides high-quality, natural health supplements and vitamins, but more importantly they buy nutritional compounds from only the most reputable laboratories. They then tests them for impurities before tabletting the vitamins in their FDA-inspected, “clean-room-level” facilities.
Ted Bremer, CEO of Nature’s Aide
CEO, Ted Bremer, a Northwestern University Masters graduate and former Microsoft employee, understands the importance of accurate representation for health supplements. In a post written by Bremer, he explains that 23,000 Americans end up in the ER each year because of confused supplement regimes, from either taking too high a dose of one vitamin or mineral, or mixing the wrong types.
“Taking too much of a single vitamin is especially dangerous when the vitamin is fat soluble, like vitamin D. While water soluble supplements like vitamin C won’t do you much harm, fat soluble ones – such as vitamin A, E, and K, to name a few more – can become toxic if you take too much” states Bremer.
In light of this, the company aim to becoming the first high-tech provider of self-monitoring tools and apps for health supplements and vitamin consumers. The key is helping people understand if there supplement routine is helping or hurting, and what is the right way to take it, according to their specific needs. The company’s next focus will be a Vitamin D application that will allow people to take the right dosage of vitamin D, according to their geographic location, skintone and other specific needs.
Accurate information about our health is incredibly important for our wellbeing. It is believed this is one of the main reasons that fake news remains so popular with this topic. This is because health related facts as more likely to appear more applicable to our lives opposed to other topics such as world events and politics. While our confidence may be shaken by online scams and even respectable names within the industry, there are still some companies such as Nature’s Aide, which aim to give us exactly what our bodies need, without a hidden surprises.
