by Carmel Wroth, Senior Editor, NPR’s Science Desk
In 2025, the algorithms on my social media accounts had me pegged as wellness-obsessed. My feeds were flooded with influencers talking up their favorite tips for thriving health, ranging from castor oil wraps to red-light therapy to supplements of all sorts.
Personally, my own health routines are pretty minimalist, focusing on exercise, good nutrition and sleep. But as a health editor, I wanted to understand the influencer ecosystem which helps fuel a $500 billion wellness industryin the U.S.
Thousands of online content creators with various credentials — or lack thereof — generate daily videos and posts that cumulatively reach millions. These posts often promote health and wellness products that the influencers earn money from. Many of the posts that go viral are from health coaches, naturopaths, holistic healers, homesteading moms and others without formal medical training.
Maria Fabrizio/For NPR
Wellness is influential politically too: There’s big crossover with the Make America Healthy Again movement that propelled Robert F. Kennedy Jr. into power as President Trump’s health secretary. Like Kennedy, many wellness influencers are skeptical of mainstream, evidence-based medicine.
After spending way too long watching videos of fit, cheerful people with glowing skin talk about their daily routines and favorite supplements, I sat down with several of my colleagues on the science desk, including editor Jane Greenhalgh, to map out a series we’ve called Healthy or Hype. In it, we fact check some of the health claims we find trending online.
As reporters Maria Godoy, Katia Riddle, Pien Huang and Sarah Boden have learned, not every claim is as solid as influencers make them sound. Some are skewed, exaggerated or baseless. But they’re not all bogus either. Some reasonable ideas circulate online too. And we wanted to help NPR’s audiences make sense of it all.
There were some surprises in our reporting. For instance, I thought creatine, a supplement that’s said to help with muscle growth, must be overhyped given the way it had exploded in my feeds. But Maria Godoy learned there’s a solid body of evidence behind its use.
And weighted vests, as Katia Riddle reported, sound like a good idea and may look cute with your walking outfit. But there’s little research to support bigger claims, like using them for muscle growth and bone density. You're better off with the tried-and-true approach of resistance training.
Other trends were less impressive: There isn't much science backing sea moss, an algae supplement that people claim is good for skin, energy, digestion and more. And the evidence doesn’t support taking blue methylene, a synthetic dye that some promote as a boost for mood and cognition.
And be wary of beef tallow, whether it’s used for cooking — nutritionists told reporter Sarah Boden that no, it doesn’t make fries healthier — or as a skincare product because, sorry, it can clog your pores.
Our reporting is aimed at helping audiences develop a better filter for sorting truth from fiction when you hear health claims. Let us know if there’s a claim you’d like to see us research by writing us at thrive@npr.org.
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