Personalized Vitamins Created By Physicians Seeking Perfect-Fit Formulas

Where did the idea come from to create personalized vitamins?  Why did two doctors set out to create the perfect-fit formulas for individual body types?  It started in our youth with the good old Flintstones™ Chewables. Why were we supposed to take them? Did everyone have to? Some kids did, others didn’t. Romy remembers her mother asking the doctor, and he said, “It can’t hurt.” Is that really true? We never knew. They tasted kind of good at first, like candy, but then not so good as they went down. 

At what age does one stop taking them? Hmm . . . The confusion continued into our college years, when no one was doing much about anything to take care of themselves, but a few lone friends swore that vitamins were the key to pulling all-nighters and hangover recovery. If other friends took them, we never knew about it. And then medical school began. Arielle remembers in detail the single two-hour lecture in med school on nutrition. 

The registered dietician who gave the lecture said, “This may be the only chance you get to learn this stuff, but you will literally need it every day of your life.” She could not have been more correct. The saddest part is that really was the only time in medical school or residency that nutrition was given the spotlight. The lecture was useful, but seemed far less glamorous than topics like treating heart attacks, broken bones, or overwhelming infections. We both put the topic of vitamins personalized and nutrition on the back burner for a few years, while we learned the ins and outs of treating “real” disease.

The overarching theme is confusion. No one knows what to take that is both safe and useful. As doctors, we were uncertain of these answers when we first embarked on our careers. We have each spent many years, individually and ultimately together, researching vitamins, the data, and the myths. 

We’ve also spent years talking to our patients in great detail about what they have taken, why they took it, and how it affected them. We have toured vitamin manufacturers’ plants and headquarters, learned about their processes, and seen firsthand what practices can and should be employed to guarantee high-quality, pure products. New research is constantly coming out, and we work hard to stay on top of it. We have also spent many years culling through what is out there, to determine what products in what form are truly beneficial and safe. Perhaps most importantly, we have learned that we are not all the same.

All of our needs are not the same. We each possess a unique combination of factors (diet, health history, genetics, symptoms, and lifestyle choices) that makes our needs individual. We have found ways to tailor our nutritional advice to individuals based on their particular needs. The person who feels great does not always need the same vitamins as the person who is fatigued or who has hair that is thinning. It is time to move away from mass-market solutions of vitamins based on crude classifications like gender and age. The technology and data science exists to develop personalized formulas in all-in-one multivitamins, and this will promote better overall health.