The Dream: S2 E3: Magic Little Pills

January 11, 2020 5:16 PM

Can powders, pills and juices deliver on the promise to live longer and look younger?

They touch on the Proxmire Amendment a lot. Read more about it.

And a bit more about it.

posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit (4 comments total)

So far this season isn’t telling me anything I don’t already know; I think perhaps having the amorphous target of the entire wellness industry, as opposed to the personal stories of MLMs from last season, just make it feel like a depressing version of ONR&C.
posted by tautological at 9:20 PM on January 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

I liked the detailed breakdown of what a vitamin actually is. It’s one of those things I sort of know, but don’t really clearly understand. But I agree that if the big expose is that the supplement industry is unregulated. then yeah that’s not news.

In general I really like the tone and style of this podcast and feel like they get good guests, but I always feel like I want more depth or something? Maybe I’m spoiled by things like On The Media or TAL that really wring out a topic.
posted by jeoc at 4:20 AM on January 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

Interesting comments. I also found myself very engaged by the first season and much less excited by the second season. Somehow it feels like it's right on the line between personal stories and big-picture journalism but doesn't really commit to either. The statistics seem a bit obvious and the personal stories aren't actually that interesting. It takes a lot of narrative craft to convince me to care about individual storefronts in Echo Park (or whatever neighborhood the walk about story was set in) or some radio producer's friend's personal opinion as an occasional consumer of wellness products.

I like and respect the host and the show and will keep listening. But, I find myself queuing up other things first these days.
posted by eotvos at 11:05 AM on January 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

Hm. So, it's one thing to say that one knows or think they know that the industry is unregulated. But, I think that we generally feel like, if you are getting something in a grocery store, it's "safe." However, the reality of what unregulation can contain is, I think, really not that well-known. Including not doing a recall for a shitty product! And not including really well known warnings for extremely common things like how St. John's Wart may alter the effectiveness of your birth control medication. Women get sad. Women take a "natural supplement" like St John's Wart. Women take the pill. Unexpected pregnancy while on the pill is no joke. So, there were a number of aspects to this that I found pretty revelatory even while knowing that supplements get away with more "stuff."
posted by amanda at 4:52 PM on March 12, 2020