Stars feel popping pills keeps them a picture of health
By Anthony Browne May 08, 2003
link to this idiotic article
CAPRICE and Liz Hurley swear by them, Geri Halliwell injected them, and Barbara Cartland adored them. Where celebrities go, the people follow, and now around ten million people in Britain take vitamin supplements.
The rising average age of the population, increasing health awareness, more stress at work and aggressive marketing have transformed vitamin pills and dietary supplements from a fringe market into a major industry.
According to a recent report by the market researchers Datamonitor, Britons spent £385 million on vitamin pills and other health supplements in 2001, and the market is expected to grow to about £550 million by 2006.
Each year, we swallow around 250million vitamin C pills, and 80 million vitamin E pills. More than a billion multivitamin pills containing vitamin A and D are sold annually.
But we are not as addicted as other nations; Britain has one of the lowest levels of spending on vitamins in Europe.
Traditional supplements such as fish oil are declining, as scientific doubt mounts about whether they have any effect. It is new types of supplements that are growing rapidly. Multivitamins, promoted in various guises backed by massive advertising, have overtaken single vitamin pills in sales.
The consumer’s desire for novelty has led to a proliferation of often bizarre products. You can now buy magnesium pills for energy, ginkgo biloba for mental alertness, boron for the bones, and extract of green-lipped mussels for the joints.
Pharmacies remain the most popular sales outlets, accounting for a third of all sales, while specialist health food shops such as Holland & Barrett have huge sections dedicated to them.
But it is supermarkets that have made huge inroads into the sector, as vitamins are increasingly seen as just a normal part of diet, rather than a medical need.
Production of vitamin pills is dominated by multinationals, particularly pharmaceutical companies. Seven Seas is the most popular British brand, accounting for one quarter of all sales.
But as the industry has grown, it has increasingly strayed into trouble. Consumer groups have branded many vitamins a waste of money, while doctors have increasingly doubted their medical claims and warned of the dangers of popping one too many.
Two years ago, the Pharmaceutical Association of Great Britain warned that the fizz had come off the vitamin industry, with sales down by almost 2 per cent. The once high-profit industry has also been hit by competition from own-brand goods, small private producers and discount stores.
The industry’s low point came in 2001, when 13 firms were fined £543 million by the European Commission for operating a price-fixing cartel. Hoffman-La Roche, makers of Sanatogen and Redoxon, was given the largest fine of £289 million. The commission found that manufacturers earned more than £150 million from bulk sales of vitamin C when the cartel operated, but just £75 million once it was broken.
Two years earlier, American competition authorities slap- ped a fine of $500 million on Roche and £225 million on BASF, and jailed a Roche executive. Now the industry’s biggest threat appears to come not from competition watchdogs, but health watchdogs, and an increasingly sceptical public. An obsession with “permayouth” and the body beautiful has put celebrities at the forefront of the vitamin revolution.
The Hollywood diet guru Robert Atkins, who recently died of a heart attack, first made his fortune from pushing pills. (emphasis added)
The model Caprice said: “I don’t have a set routine but I do drink a litre of water every day and take vitamins.
“I take vitamin C, two multivitamins, cod liver oil, vitamin E, zinc and horse tail. I’m a vegetarian so I take supplements to ensure I get the right nutrients. If I’m travelling my suitcase rattles.”
Author claims Atkins died of a Heart Attack: "Stars feel popping pills keeps them..."
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