In the current market, there is an abundance of dietary supplements available, covering various nutrients such as Omega-3, Vitamin C, or calcium, iron, and zinc. These ingredients are no longer limited to traditional forms, but can appear before consumers in a variety of gummy shapes. Nowadays, gummy supplements with a variety of delicious flavors can be found, such as collagen peach-flavored gummies, strawberry and watermelon-flavored gummies, as well as cranberry-flavored probiotic gummies and tropical-flavored gummies. They are touted as being beneficial in boosting mood, promoting metabolism, strengthening the immune system, and benefiting hair, skin, and nails. For the children’s market, “Transformers” multivitamin gummies and “My Little Pony” multivitamin gummies, incorporating education and fun, cater to different age groups.
Indeed, we seem to be witnessing the “golden age” of gummies. Many people naturally prefer delicious gummy supplements to conventional medications. After all, the sweet taste is always more appealing. However, the history of gummies far predates these health products. Turkish delight can be traced back to the late 18th century, and the “gum baby,” a prototype for gummies, was born in 1860s Britain. In the 1920s, the German company Haribo brought gelatin-based gummy bears to the market, a classic gummy that remains popular today.
As we moved into the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the health product industry began to promote their products innovatively through gummy forms. This attempt is, in a way, rooted in an ancient concept: as sung in the movie “Mary Poppins,” “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” Compared to traditional health products, vitamin gummies undoubtedly have a more tempting taste and are so similar to regular candy that people can hardly tell the difference. This deliciously easy-to-eat characteristic may be the reason why vitamin gummies are so popular.
In 1999, when Tod Cooperman, the founder of ConsumerLab, first introduced the concept of gummy supplements, there were no such products on the market. Adult vitamin gummies made their debut in 2012, and today, gummy supplements have become ubiquitous, constituting a rapidly growing industry valued at over $70 billion. Industry forecasts predict that this figure will double by 2027.
The popularity of gummy supplements conceals some worrisome issues. The reason why many gummy supplements taste no different from candy is that their sugar content is often not inferior to candy. According to Cooperman, early gummy supplements were essentially vitamins wrapped in candy. However, with continuous improvement, modern food scientists have been able to integrate nutrients and vitamins directly into gummies while maintaining their wonderful taste and appropriate texture, as well as controlling their sugar content.
However, such a convenient method of intake is not always cause for joy. Even though ingesting small amounts of sugar is not a severe adverse event, excessive consumption of supplements rich in vitamins and other nutrients could potentially harm the body, especially in children. Cooperman warns that compared to other types of supplements, gummies are not a reliable method of “administration.” This is because vitamins and other chemical components in the gel-like texture of gummies have relatively low stability, especially under the influence of heat, light, moisture, and other environmental pollutants, which accelerates their degradation.
In an effort to reduce the impact of environmental pollutants, some health supplement manufacturers add active ingredients to their products in amounts that far exceed the content claimed on the packaging. In 2023, Consumer Lab assessed the vitamin and mineral content in gummy supplements, and among the four types of gummy health products analyzed, three were found to contain nearly double the labeled amounts, while another had only about three-quarters of the expected content. Analysis of melatonin and CBD gummies also revealed a similar phenomenon of excess, with some products containing as much as 347% of the labeled amount.
Given that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not strictly regulate health supplements as it does drugs, this variation in content is to some extent acceptable; however, the situation with drugs is quite different. Although generally speaking, overdosing on health supplements is not as dangerous as overdosing on drugs, excessive intake can still have adverse effects on the body.
Some voices in the science community suggest that consumers should avoid purchasing gummy health supplements. The popularity of such products is partly due to the health supplement industry’s ability to promote their products in various ways, such as claiming to boost immunity or maintain bone health without the stringent regulatory oversight of medicines. The prevalence of health supplements is making the boundary between food and medicine increasingly blurred, and the rise of gummy health products further confuses this boundary.
A central concept in marketing is that healthy things can and should be as delicious as candy. Nevertheless, many voices in the scientific community believe that the boundary between health supplements and candy should be clearly defined, and not all nutrients need to be consumed in the form of candy.
