Imagine a priest who does not believe in God, or a chef who survives on microwave meals. That is how the modern wellness space increasingly feels.

Before going any further, an important clarification is necessary. I am not against supplementation. When used intelligently, supplements save lives. Iron for anemia, vitamin D for deficiencies, creatine for athletes. The issue is not supplementation itself, but the unquestioned belief that healthy people somehow need pills to remain healthy.

Why do fit people need supplements at all? If someone is truly healthy, why does the body appear to crumble without synthetic support? How did we arrive at a definition of optimal wellness that is so fragile it cannot sustain itself without constant external input?

Equally puzzling is the aggression that surrounds this space. If supplements are optional, why do influencers behave as if people will deteriorate without them? Why does a self proclaimed health guru require fifteen different pills just to function through the day? And why is supplementation promoted as a universal rule rather than a targeted intervention for specific needs?

I recommend supplements only to those with proven deficiencies or clearly defined demands. They should never become a cult like doctrine for people who are already healthy. This article does not challenge science. It challenges industrial excess and the narratives built around it.

Consider the modern health influencer, a walking paradox who preaches optimal living while consuming a long list of supplements every single day. They speak of biological wisdom and evolutionary insight, yet their dependence on pills reveals a profound lack of trust in human physiology itself. If they truly understood health, their bodies would not require constant chemical support. If their lifestyles were genuinely optimal, they would function the way humans have functioned for most of history, without perpetual correction.

Instead, their cupboards resemble pharmacies. Supplements in this context are no longer about wellness. They are about manufactured necessity, affiliate revenue, and sustaining an ecosystem that profits from convincing people they are perpetually inadequate.

We are repeatedly told that science is upgrading a flawed human design. Yet this narrative collapses under basic questioning. How did Inuit populations survive extreme Arctic conditions without omega capsules? Why are Hunza centenarians often cited in observational accounts for longevity while living on traditional diets, without supplement stacks or optimisation protocols? The human body is not defective. We have simply drifted away from the environmental and behavioural conditions it evolved to thrive in.

The contradiction becomes even more obvious when influencers glorify Blue Zone populations. Okinawans, Sardinians, and others are celebrated as models of longevity, yet the core details are conveniently ignored. Blue Zone elders did not rely on multivitamins, track protein intake, or time nutrients. They moved daily, ate seasonal food, slept naturally, and lived long lives without biohacks or optimisation frameworks. Still, we are told that achieving longevity today requires expensive supplement stacks to recreate what ordinary people once achieved through simple living.

Biohacking claims to engineer superior biology, but the reality tells a different story. Many of these supposedly optimised bodies cannot function without synthetic inputs. Supplements are often used to compensate for sedentary, screen dominated lifestyles rather than to support genuine physiological demands. True optimisation is not about hacking the system. It is about not needing to hack it in the first place.

When challenged, the defence almost always shifts to performance and gains. Protein targets, creatine, molecular pathways, and longevity signalling are brought into the conversation. Yet history raises uncomfortable questions. Entire populations demonstrated strength, endurance, and resilience without powders, protocols, or constant stimulation. Longevity research itself frequently contradicts modern obsessions with excess intake and perpetual activation.

This leads to the central question that remains unanswered. If someone is truly healthy, why can they not live without supplements? The responses tend to revolve around performance enhancement, modern toxins, or selective research, but they rarely address the core issue. Health that collapses without constant external support is not health. It is dependence.

The uncomfortable truth is that supplements have become the content. Without pills, there is little left to sell. Complexity sustains authority, while simplicity threatens it. The greatest fear within the wellness industry is that people may realise health was never locked inside bottles, but lost through lifestyle choices.

The more supplements an influencer consumes, the less they seem to understand human health. Real wellness is not mysterious. It involves moving in ways the body expects, eating food that does not require ingredient labels, sleeping without artificial stimulation, and stopping the treatment of the human body as a malfunctioning machine.

To be clear once again, I am not against supplements. They save lives when used correctly, improve outcomes for specific populations, and remain valuable tools when applied with judgment. What I oppose is the idea that everyone needs them, the illusion that health comes from bottles rather than behaviour, and an industry that sells insecurity disguised as optimisation.

Take what you need. Leave what you do not. And never allow anyone to convince you that your body is fundamentally incompetent.