Are You Settling for Pharma When Nutraceuticals Could Do More?

Morning!

Between the latest Ozempic headlines and the supplement aisle that now stretches longer than a CVS receipt, it’s easy to feel a little skeptical about what actually helps when it comes to your health. On one side, you’ve got pharmaceuticals: FDA-approved, prescription-only, and often the heavy hitters in medicine. On the other, there’s nutraceuticals, the turmeric, omega-3s, and magnesium of the world, natural compounds that promise to support your health without the scary side effects.

So, what’s the difference? Do they actually work? And if so, how do you know when to choose one over the other?

Let’s unpack it.

What are Nutraceuticals?

The term “nutraceutical” was coined in the 1980s, but the idea is ancient. In order to understand what people mean with this term it is easiest to look back to one of the world's most important philosophers, Hippocrates who once said, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”. Think garlic for immunity, ginger for nausea, or willow bark, the original aspirin. Nutraceuticals are foods or food-derived compounds that offer medical or health benefits. They don’t just “feed” you, they help you function better.

Meanwhile, pharmaceuticals are designed to intervene. These are synthesized compounds that act directly on disease processes. They’re potent, powerful, and often necessary, but they’re usually the last stop, once things have already gone wrong.

Nutraceuticals? They’re more like guardrails. Used consistently, they help prevent issues from happening in the first place, or support your system in bouncing back.

A Brief History of Both

Before modern pharma took over, nearly all treatments were food- or plant-based. But starting in the 20th century, everything changed. Aspirin was synthesized in 1897. Penicillin followed in 1928. And with that, medicine shifted from “let’s help the body do its job” to “let’s let this drug do the job for the body.”

The nutraceutical movement, especially since the 1980s, has been a kind of counterbalance. A return to prevention, to root-cause thinking, and to the idea that the body, given the right tools, can handle more than we give it credit for. Dr. Stephen DeFelice defined them as “Food or parts of food that provide medical or health benefits, including prevention and treatment of disease”. It was a response to the rise in chronic lifestyle diseases, growing distrust of the pharma industry and a calling to revert to a more natural, holistic and prevention focused way of living. 

The problem is, with this return came a flood of supplements. Some excellent, some questionable, and some completely unregulated. Unlike pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals don’t need to pass clinical trials. They just need to be “generally recognized as safe.” This makes them more accessible, but also more prone to abuse by companies more interested in profit than science.

What’s the Real Difference?

Pharmaceuticals are tightly regulated, clinically tested, and designed to target a disease directly often with serious power and, sometimes, serious side effects. Nutraceuticals, by contrast, are usually regulated as foods or dietary supplements. They’re not required to go through clinical trials, and they don’t need to “prove” efficacy in the same way. As long as they’re GRAS, generally recognized as safe, they’re cleared for shelves.

This looser regulation is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it makes nutraceuticals widely accessible and easier to produce. On the other, it leaves the door wide open for shady products and exaggerated claims, giving the whole field a bit of a snake-oil reputation. And that’s a shame, because when done right, nutraceuticals do work.

The Truth Behind the Trend

We get it, it’s a lot easier to take a pill than to rework your lifestyle. That’s why we lean on pharmaceuticals when we hit a health wall. But that quick fix often skips right over the root cause.

Take Ozempic (in most cases), for example: it might help you lose weight, but it doesn’t address the habits that got you there in the first place. It’s a patch, not a path.

Nutraceuticals, on the other hand, work best when they’re not seen as a shortcut, but as part of the long game.

The Heavy Hitters That Actually Deliver

Some nutraceuticals are more than just trendy, they’ve been rigorously studied, time-tested, and proven to support real health outcomes:

Omega-3 (Fish Oil)
Backed by hundreds of studies, omega-3s support heart health, lower inflammation, improve cognitive performance, and even help with mood regulation.

Turmeric
The golden spice. Packed with curcumin, turmeric has strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, without needing a prescription.

CoQ10
Your cells love this stuff. CoQ10 helps produce ATP (your energy currency) and supports heart health. Production declines with age, making supplementation especially useful over time.

Creatine
Yes, the gym favorite. But beyond strength gains, creatine has been shown to enhance cognitive performance and support muscle recovery. Spoiler: next week’s newsletter is all about it.

Magnesium
This one’s in a league of its own. Magnesium isn’t just a muscle relaxer, it helps regulate sleep, supports mood, modulates insulin, and is basically the protagonist for creating energy and neurotransmitters. Most minerals could be considered nutraceuticals, however magnesium is especially relevant for the following reasons: 

• Industrial farming has stripped our soil (and our food) of magnesium.

• Processed food is even worse, most has little to none.

• Coffee, alcohol, and stress all deplete your body’s magnesium stores.

So unless you’re eating like your great-grandparents (or taking other specific measures to address it), odds are, you’re running low.

Your Health, Your Responsibility

Let’s be real: no supplement, no matter how powerful, is a substitute for a balanced, healthy life. Taking 10 different capsules a day won’t undo a sedentary lifestyle, a sugar-heavy diet, or chronic stress.

But when used wisely and consistently, nutraceuticals can fill in the gaps, and they do it tremendously. When paired with the stuff that actually builds long-term health, like real food, sunlight, sleep, movement, and laughter, they can help you feel better, live longer, and stay off the pharmaceutical treadmill a little longer.

Final Thoughts

As always, thank you for being part of the 8%. We appreciate you more than you know. Oh, and a quick heads-up, we now offer free shipping on orders over $40, and live rates on our website at checkout to make things smoother. Thought you’d like that.

Until next week!

- Nicolas & Adrian (Chief Dietitian) | The 8% Authors