It is so difficult to weed out the truth from fiction in most advertisements today. Nowhere is this more true than with supplement advertising. The mantra of “Buyer Beware” is a good standard to go by. Let me give you a couple of examples to prove my point.

Recently the makers of Centrum® began a campaign where a big dump truck backs up and cascades many hundreds of “other” vitamin bottles to the ground. Then the well-groomed man with the deep assuring voice says something along these lines, “All of these other brands are about quantity; but not Centrum. Centrum is about important combinations of nutrients like vitamin C to regenerate E and vitamin D to help calcium absorption and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!!! The impression you get is that Centrum is special. Although they are very careful not to say it, they imply that Centrum is the only one of those hundreds of bottles to provide these important nutrient combinations. They even tell you if your vitamin does not include these combinations you should consider Centrum.

Let me ask you a number of questions. First, have you ever seen any multivitamin that does not contain vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin D, or calcium? Of course you have not. Every multivitamin on earth has these “important nutrient combinations.” So, is Centrum really special as they imply? Nope. My last question is what do you call it when someone intentionally misleads you? I know what I call it.

Another example is found commonly with arthritis supplements. A specific example is the advertising campaign by Schiff® for Move Free® Advanced. They make the claim that their product is 2x’s more effective than glucosamine and chondroitin alone. How do they make this impressive claim? They site an unpublished and junk study they paid for 2 years ago. Anyone in the field of nutrition with integrity knows that you cannot make this type of claim from this kind of “study.” They didn’t stop there, though. They go on to claim that 9 out 10 doctors prefer their formula. That comes as a surprise to this doctor. They claim that they sent out an internet survey to doctors but do not disclose who they sent it to or what question they asked.

Bottom line: Do not believe anything you see and or hear regarding supplements when someone is trying to sell you something. You will be right 99.9% of the time. (By the way, I just made that statistic up but I bet I am close.)