CHEWY SWEET TO DELIVER THE VITAMINS YOU NEED

NOURISHED, £39.99 per month, get-nourished.com CLAIM: You take an online quiz to get your personal ‘prescription’, which comes in the form of a sugar-free chewable sweet, formed of a stack of seven differently coloured layers of gel — each layer containing a particular supplement. MY PRESCRIPTION: The daily ‘stack’ contains vitamins A and D, resveratrol (a compound found in red grape skins said to protect the brain from disease), selenium, ginger, silica (a mineral believed to aid bone and skin health), and extract of ashwagandha (a herb believed to ease stress). MY VERDICT: This is clearly aimed at an entry level supplement-taking market that prefers a chewy sweet to swallowing pills, but I confess I was excited to receive my box of individually wrapped ‘stacks’, which taste like ginger-flavoured fruit gums. EXPERT VERDICT: Resveratrol has been ‘prescribed’ for brain health here, but there is much more evidence for B vitamins — particularly B6, B9 (folate) and B12 — for memory and protecting the brain from dementia, and the prescription contains a much lower dose of resveratrol (100mg) compared to the 250mg to 1,000mg shown to be beneficial in studies.

The vitamin D (300IU) included is not high enough to be beneficial, and although the ‘stack’ also has vitamin A for eye health, research shows plant compounds lutein and zeaxanthin (which we can get from green leafy veg) would have been better options.

The published studies on ashwagandha extract are inconclusive and use doses five to ten times higher than those in this product. Although some people prefer a chewable supplement to swallowing pills, this is essentially an expensive and not particularly efficacious sweet. 4/10