Are personalised vitamins the key to good health?

If you want to lose weight, get a good night's sleep, and have a sunny state of mind, then you need a custom supplement plan. These are just some of the promises offered by the world's personalized vitamins, each of which hints at the possibility of looking healthier, happier and younger, all for the price of a subscription.

I settled on the company that offers a blend of tailored vitamins and 3D printing for a monthly fee. Rather than taking a series of pills each morning, it promises to combine all the vitamins and minerals you need in a single gummy.

As a journalist with a penchant for snacking, I list my screen time as excessive, my goals as weight loss/toning and a little extra energy, and wait as the results come in. A few days later, a sleek box arrives in the post, filled with small packets of food.

The founder of Nourished is a self-proclaimed vegan who used to run a 3D printing business. She spilled a bag of supplements at the Dsseldorf airport and came up with the idea for the company. She told me that she thought 3D printing technology could be used to combine everything into one easy, personalized format.

It all looks bullshit. I don’t think there’s much information about any of these things changing your sleep

While Nourished's products look appealing, do they really help with your health? Most of its competitors make big claims. Reducing cravings, protecting my eyes from blue light and boosting sleep quality are some of the benefits listed for my combination of vitamins and supplements.

When I run these ingredients by a group of nutrition experts, they aren't impressed. Margaret Rayman is a professor of nutrition at the University ofurrey. There isn't much information about how these things affect sleep.

The professor of nutrition and dietetics at the University ofNewcastle in New South Wales, Australia, believes that the ingredients are worthless.

The research reports used to vindicate the products they recommend are put through an extremely rigorous auditing process. She says that the patented ingredient for Lutemax is based on lutein, which has a lot of clinical data about how it protects your eyes. A lot of patented ingredients are used because of the data behind them. There is a lot of data when it comes to the extract of white kidneys. We are looking for research that has been peer reviewed, that has been published in a journal, and that has been done on a lot of people.

According to Collins, there was no good evidence that lutein could protect your eyes. She says that there haven't been rigorous, randomized controlled trials looking at the side-effects. It isn't there.

Journalists and academics have become more interested in the rise of the personalized vitamins industry. Some of the biggest food companies in the world have begun to look at the lucrative new industry of personalized retail nutrition. The company acquired the service for an undisclosed amount.

While consumers are flocking to providers in droves, questions are being raised over what is being marketed to consumers

Despite entering different information in the personalisation quiz, the journalists tested a range of personalized vitamins and found them to be the same.

Emily is particularly cynical about companies that charge more for every supplement they recommend. She believes that many companies cherrypick and overinflate the results from single research studies. Their website might say, 'Oh, there is science behind this vitamins for this group of people', but the findings don't support what they are saying.

Some of the issues with vitamins are pointed out by Burch. These have been one of the most reliable income generators in the wellbeing industry for a long time, and in the last few years major pharma companies have begun to enter the game. They all sell their own vitamins.

In the 1940's, people in the US went to drug stores to get their hands on vitamins. Since then, vitamins have spread around the globe and helped to create an industry that is now worth an estimated $128.6 billion.

I think some people see vitamins as an extra insurance policy, but they’re not without harm

Despite decades of research, the evidence for whether vitamins and minerals can change your health is not clear. There is some evidence to support the benefits of taking folic acid in early pregnancy and zinc in later life, but there isn't a lot of evidence to support the benefits of vitamins. According to a 2020 British Medical Journal analysis, randomized trial evidence does not support the use of vitamins, minerals, and fish oil supplements to reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases.

Some of the clearest evidence shows that taking vitamins can harm your health if you smoke or take drugs that interact with vitamins. The risk of lung cancer in smokers has been found to be increased by the use of vitamins A and K, as well as by the use of St John's wort.

Nutrition experts feel that a balanced diet with a wide variety of vegetables and fruits is better for a person's health than taking additional supplements. According to Rayman, tomatoes contain all the minerals you need.

People who take excessive amounts of supplements can be prone to a condition called hypervitaminosis, in which high levels of vitamins in fat tissue can lead to problems. Some research has shown that there is an increase in the risk of cancer in men who take Folic Acid. Iron can accumulate in the brain, which can lead to diseases.

Collins believes that vitamins are not without harm. If you don't need them, the fat-soluble ones are stored in your body or in your stomach. There are only benefits to eating more vegetables.

By and large, those who are taking extra micronutrients don’t need them because they already have a healthy diet

Nutritionists see a role for vitamins in people with specific medical conditions or who need certain minerals in their diet. People with a number of diseases have problems with their vitamins. It is advisable to seek professional advice if you are following a vegan diet, as studies have shown that it is possible to benefit from additional vitamins.

The elderly are more likely to become deficient in certain vitamins, which is why the age group who might benefit most from individualised vitamins is them. Older men living alone and on a very restricted diet are more likely to have deficient vitamins. Those who are taking extra micronutrients are usually people who already have a good diet.

It seems to fit the profile of most subscribers. A typical Made4 Vitamins customer is between the ages of 25 and 45 according to the company.

When presented with a profile of a person who is likely to be deficient in certain vitamins, Rayman argues that personalized vitamins should be able to recommend the right supplements.

Sania is a 29-year-old Indian woman living in the UK who is trying to get pregnant and is a vegan. We tried to get these details into a number of nutrition providers.

Her skin is dark and so will have a higher requirement for vitamins. B12, which is missing in all vegan foods, is important for brain development in the womb, and the main source in the UK is milk, dairy products and fish. The brain and eyes of a baby cannot be made up from a vegan diet.

The only provider that suggested the expected supplements was Persona. This was the most expensive option, with the usual price being 98 dollars.

One of the major limitations with all of these providers is that the personalisation aspect is dependent on a user completing a quiz. Some feel that, in the future, new technologies such as genotyping may be able to provide a more precise and scientific method of identifying who is deficient in which vitamins, but this research is still in its infancy.

The science is promising for some things, but it is not complete yet. It is difficult to pin this down to only one or two variations because of the complexity of the interaction of the two elements.

If you want to take vitamins in the future, you should save your money and buy a pill.

Rayman says the prices are a bit ridiculous. If you have any doubts, you can buy yourself a multivitamin that contains a lot of vitamins and minerals from any supermarket and it's free.