The wellness industry spent billions marketing these four products. Here is what the evidence actually shows.

YOUR HEALTH — Issue No. 26

The Wellness Industry — Four Products, Four Evidence Checks

You have probably seen at least one of these four products advertised.

AG1. Balance of Nature. Nugenix. Goli.

They promise better nutrition, more energy, higher testosterone, weight loss, or simply a healthier version of yourself. The packaging is professional. The testimonials are compelling. The language sounds clinical.

The question is not whether the ingredients sound healthy. The question is whether the product you are buying has actually been shown to do what the advertising implies.

That is what this issue is about.

One principle that runs through all four

Before the products — one idea worth keeping in mind as you read:

Ingredient evidence is not the same as product evidence.

An ingredient studied at a specific dose in a clinical trial does not automatically make a product containing it effective. The dose matters. The formulation matters. The product itself has to be studied — not just one ingredient inside it.

You will not find this distinction on the label. It does not appear in most advertising. It is the most important thing to understand about how the wellness industry constructs its claims — and it applies to all four products below.

AG1 — the $99-per-month greens powder

AG1 — formerly Athletic Greens — is one of the most sophisticated direct-to-consumer supplement products on the market. The company allocates an estimated $2.2 million per month to podcast advertising alone — with multi-year partnerships with some of the most listened-to podcasters in health and fitness. The branding is premium. The website uses the language of science confidently.

Here is the clinical picture.

AG1 contains 75 ingredients. The vitamins and minerals — vitamin C, B vitamins, vitamin D, magnesium — are listed transparently on the supplement facts panel and are present in generous, verifiable doses. That part is real.

The other ingredients are grouped inside what the supplement industry calls proprietary blends. A proprietary blend lists the total weight of the blend on the label — but does not disclose how much of any individual ingredient is inside it. The consumer cannot verify whether an adaptogen, mushroom extract, or botanical is present at the dose used in any clinical study. This is legal under current supplement regulations. You cannot evaluate those claims from the label.

As Harvard researcher Dr. Pieter Cohen has noted: the presence of a beneficial ingredient does not mean a product containing it will deliver the same benefit — particularly when doses are hidden behind proprietary blends.

In January 2025 AG1 released a reformulated product — AG1 Next Gen — alongside four company-sponsored randomized controlled trials. In the supplement industry, having any clinical trials at all is unusual. Having four is notable. The studies showed improved B-vitamin biomarker status and some gut microbiome changes over four weeks. That is worth acknowledging.

What they are not: independent trials. They were sponsored and conducted by the company. Independent replication has not occurred. Four weeks is a short window. And biomarker changes are not the same as demonstrated health outcomes.

The honest Plain Medicine verdict:

The vitamins and minerals in AG1 are real and reasonably dosed. A standard quality multivitamin delivers comparable micronutrient coverage for approximately $0.20 to $0.30 per day — compared to $4 to $5 per day for AG1. The proprietary blend ingredients cannot be verified for dose and have not been independently studied as part of this product.

For most healthy adults, AG1 is unlikely to be harmful when used as directed. But unlikely to be harmful is a very different claim from clinically necessary. The marketing implies the latter. The evidence supports the former.

Balance of Nature — the fruit and vegetable capsules

Balance of Nature sells freeze-dried fruit and vegetable powder in capsules — three fruit capsules and three vegetable capsules per day — at approximately $90 to $100 per month. The radio commercials, which are hard to miss, feature testimonials suggesting the product resolved serious health conditions.

Here is the regulatory and clinical record.

The FDA issued a warning letter to Balance of Nature in August 2019 for making unverified health claims and misbranding its products. The company was accused of claiming its products could treat cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. In 2025 Balance of Nature agreed to a $9.95 million class action settlement to resolve claims it falsely advertised the health benefits of its products.

There is no published peer-reviewed clinical trial demonstrating that Balance of Nature capsules produce measurable health improvements in humans.

The math on the product itself is worth considering: six capsules per day — three fruit, three vegetable — contain a blended powder derived from 31 different fruits and vegetables. The amount of any individual fruit or vegetable per serving is a fraction of a gram — a minuscule quantity compared to eating even one actual serving of that food.

The honest Plain Medicine verdict:

Freeze-dried fruit and vegetable powder is not harmful. But at $90 to $100 per month for doses too small to replicate eating actual produce — from a company with an FDA warning letter and a $9.95 million legal settlement for false advertising — this is not a product Plain Medicine can recommend.

Eat the fruit. Eat the vegetables. The fiber, the satiety, the phytonutrient content, and the clinical evidence all favor the real thing over the capsule.

Nugenix — the testosterone booster

Nugenix markets itself aggressively to men over 40 experiencing fatigue, reduced libido, and declining muscle mass — symptoms that map directly onto the low testosterone conversation from Issue #20. The advertising language is confident. The product is positioned as a natural alternative to prescription testosterone.

Here is what Nugenix actually is and what it can and cannot do.

Nugenix does not contain testosterone. It contains a combination of vitamins, minerals, and herbal extracts — fenugreek, boron, tongkat ali, and others depending on the formulation — intended to stimulate the body's own testosterone production. This is a meaningful distinction. OTC testosterone boosters do not suppress the body's own production the way prescription testosterone replacement does.

There are no clinical trials on Nugenix as a complete product. Some individual ingredients have limited evidence. Boron at doses similar to those in Nugenix showed a 28% increase in free testosterone in a 2011 trial. Fenugreek extract has some evidence for modest free testosterone support. That is worth acknowledging.

The problems are familiar ones. The proprietary blend structure means individual ingredient doses cannot be verified from the label. A 2020 review in the World Journal of Men's Health examined 50 OTC testosterone booster products and found that most lacked adequate evidence for their primary claims.

The broader picture from Issue #20 also applies here: if the symptoms driving someone toward Nugenix — fatigue, low libido, reduced muscle mass — are caused by true hypogonadism, an OTC supplement is not the appropriate intervention. A morning testosterone measurement is. If those symptoms are driven by poor sleep, obesity, or another reversible cause — no supplement addresses that either.

The honest Plain Medicine verdict:

Nugenix is unlikely to cause serious harm for most healthy men when used as directed. Some individual ingredients have modest supporting evidence. But the symptoms it targets deserve a clinical evaluation before a supplement — not a supplement before a clinical evaluation.

If you are experiencing the symptoms Nugenix advertises — ask your provider for a morning testosterone measurement. That conversation is more likely to be useful than a $60 bottle.

Goli — the apple cider vinegar gummy

Goli created the apple cider vinegar gummy category in 2019 and has sold hundreds of millions of units. The appeal is real: liquid apple cider vinegar is unpleasant to take. A gummy that tastes good and delivers the same benefit is a reasonable idea.

There is a problem with that premise — and it comes back to the principle at the top of this issue.

Apple cider vinegar's proposed benefits — modest weight loss, blood sugar modulation — come from its acetic acid content. The clinical trials showing any meaningful effects used liquid ACV at 15 to 30 milliliters per day — providing approximately 750 to 1,500 milligrams of acetic acid.

Two Goli gummies — the recommended serving — provide approximately 50 milligrams of acetic acid. That is roughly 25 times less than the dose used in trials showing any measurable effect.

One of the frequently cited ACV trials was retracted by BMJ in September 2025 for data concerns — which is exactly why the evidence in this space needs to be read carefully rather than accepted at face value.

The most rigorous current evidence comes from a 2025 meta-analysis of 10 randomized controlled trials involving 789 adults with overweight or type 2 diabetes — which found modest but significant reductions in weight and BMI from liquid ACV at 30 milliliters per day. Modest effects. Liquid form. Studied dose.

The honest Plain Medicine verdict:

The problem is not that apple cider vinegar has no evidence. It is that the evidence for apple cider vinegar does not establish that this particular gummy, at this particular dose, produces the same effect.

This is the clearest illustration of the principle at the top of this issue. Ingredient evidence is not product evidence. The dose used in the research and the dose in the gummy are not the same thing — and that difference matters.

The pattern worth naming

These four products represent four of the most heavily marketed wellness categories in America — targeted squarely at adults over 40 and 50.

They share a pattern:

Marketing that uses clinical language — "clinically studied," "doctor recommended," "proven to" — without independent evidence that the complete product produces the advertised effect.

Proprietary blend structures that prevent verification of whether active ingredients are present at meaningful doses.

Testimonial-heavy advertising that implies benefits the products have not been shown in independent trials to deliver.

For someone spending significant money on wellness products every month, it is worth asking whether that spending is addressing a specific health need with strong evidence behind it — or filling a gap the marketing created.

Something worth saying plainly:

The wellness industry is not evil. Some of the people who make these products believe in them. Some of the people who take them feel better — and the placebo effect is real and not nothing.

But the regulatory framework that allows these products to make clinical-sounding claims without clinical evidence is the same one Issue #24 described. And the target audience — adults over 50 who are trying to be proactive about their health — deserves honest guidance more than any other group.

The questions from Issue #24 still apply:

What specific problem am I trying to solve — and is there a supplement with evidence that actually matches that goal?

Is the product third-party tested?

Does my provider know what I am taking?

Those questions are more useful than any marketing claim.

The Member deep-dive this week takes a different angle entirely — not more about the products, but about what you were actually trying to fix when you bought one. The root concern behind AG1, Balance of Nature, Nugenix, and Goli is usually real and worth addressing. The paid issue covers what the evidence actually says about addressing it.

Next week: Diabetes and prediabetes — what the numbers mean, when lifestyle is enough, and when medication changes the trajectory.

Plain Medicine is published for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice or establish a patient-provider relationship. Always consult your healthcare provider before making medical decisions.

— Kyle