Weight-Loss Drug Users Are Buying More Vitamins, Pushing Supplements to $74 Billion
Shoppers are increasingly finding them on social media, especially TikTok, whose Shop has about $1 billion in total sales.
Reuters World News · US Starlink requests, Alaska's Senate race and Serbia's electionsAlison Vecchio, a Florida emergency room nurse, credits weight-loss drugs with transforming her health, and says they also transformed what she buys each month. She now spends a few hundred dollars a month on products including fiber, collagen powders, and electrolyte drinks, which she uses to cope with nausea, constipation, and diarrhea that GLP-1 drugs, the class that includes Ozempic and Wegovy, can cause.
She is not alone. The Nutrition Business Journal reports that close to half of people taking GLP-1s added vitamins or other add-ons only after they started the prescription. Vecchio said she started looking into more supplements to get the maximum effect she could from the dose she could tolerate, and to get the results she wanted.
Shoppers are finding some of these products on social media as well as in stores. Retail reporter Nick Brown says supplement promotion and marketing in the United States increasingly happens through social feeds, largely TikTok. TikTok Shop generated about $1 billion in e-commerce sales across all kinds of goods, a figure he says keeps rising. Doctors and researchers say online supplement marketing needs stronger oversight because shoppers have little way to judge whether influencers are trustworthy.
That demand helps explain how supplement sales grew to $74 billion, with GLP-1 users giving sales an extra boost. Starting a supplement brand has long required relatively little testing or paperwork. Unlike makers of prescription drugs, supplement makers have not had to run large clinical trials, and they have not needed advance clearance from the Food and Drug Administration for the promises on the package.
What buyers get for the money is less clear. Sellers often pitch powders and pills as a way to preserve muscle while losing weight, but there is little direct proof most of them improve results. Fiber can help with constipation, and protein can help protect muscle when paired with resistance exercise, while evidence for collagen for weight, muscle, or skin is weaker.
Rules may soon tighten. U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy has proposed that new ingredients and product claims go through FDA preapproval. Preapproval would raise the bar for new brands trying to enter the market.
Questions people ask
Why don't supplements need FDA approval like prescription drugs?
Under a 1994 federal law, supplements are treated more like foods than drugs. Companies are responsible for safety and truthful labeling, but they can sell without proving effectiveness first. The FDA generally steps in after a problem is reported, by warning, seizing products, or seeking a ban.
Is it safe to mix extra supplements with a GLP-1?
Many are low risk, but they are not risk free. Supplements can interact with prescription drugs, contain more or less than the label says, or include hidden ingredients. Doctors advise telling your prescriber about everything you take and being skeptical of influencer promises.
What would Kennedy's preapproval plan change?
It would shift oversight from reaction to review. Companies would need FDA clearance before introducing certain ingredients and before making specific health claims. Supporters say that could weed out weak claims, while critics say it could raise costs and slow launches.