Overhyped Wellness Trends: How to Check Any Health Claim Before You Spend Money
Most overhyped wellness trends fail the same four-question test: Does it blame one thing for everything? Is the "evidence" a testimonial instead of a trial? Can any independent medical body confirm the claim? And what does a year of it cost? If a trend fails three of those four, I don't buy it. Below: the trends failing the test right now, the ones where the hype is partly right, a 10-minute verification routine you can run on any product, and what U.S. regulators actually did about fake wellness marketing in 2026. The 2026 case that shows what happens when wellness marketing goes too far In April 2026, the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against Vanilla Chip LLC, which does business as TruHeight, over supplements marketed to parents as height growth for children and teenagers — with claims like "The Only Supplement Clinically Proven to Help Height Growth." The FTC also described the company's review operation: several thousand five-star revi...