Do 'functional' drinks really work?
Functional or "healthy" drinks claim to calm you down, boost your energy, or improve brain health. Celebrities from Katy Perry to Bella Hadid have embraced them. But are they actually worth it?
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00:02 The US healthy drinks market is valued at $9.2 billion.
00:07 That's 10% of the drinks industry.
00:10 And it hasn't always been that way.
00:12 It has ballooned 50% since the start of the COVID pandemic.
00:17 These drinks are gaining steam
00:18 as we become more health conscious as a society.
00:22 But are they actually healthy for you
00:24 and are they worth the extra dollars?
00:27 I'm Mia de Graaf and I'm a health editor at Business Insider.
00:31 Functional drinks are drinks that have a supposed
00:37 added benefit to your experience of drinking them.
00:40 So think about coffee, energy drinks, alcohol, soda.
00:45 These are all things that give you a kind of buzz.
00:47 They have caffeine, they have sugar, they have alcohols.
00:50 That's a function.
00:51 But we are moving towards a different kind
00:54 of functional drink, which is marketed
00:56 as a replacement for those.
00:57 Now, functional drinks is a code word for healthy drinks.
01:02 The ingredients of these might be something like probiotics.
01:05 That's supposed to heal your gut.
01:07 Adaptogens, supposedly good for calming you.
01:10 Nootropics, supposedly good for your brain health.
01:13 CBD, which is supposed to relax you.
01:16 Functional drinks have been around for centuries.
01:19 Tea, coffee, these are drinks
01:22 that have been giving humans a buzz
01:24 for years and years and years.
01:26 But functional drinks as an industry
01:28 really got started in the 1980s with Red Bull.
01:32 Red Bull was invented by this Austrian toothpaste salesman
01:36 who went to Thailand in 1982 and discovered
01:38 that there was this popular drink among Thai truck drivers
01:42 that seemed to give them energy
01:43 as they were on the road for a long time.
01:45 He thinks, "This is great for blue collar workers
01:48 "in Thailand, but I think I can market this
01:50 "to white collar workers in Europe.
01:52 "This could be a compliment to your fast paced life."
01:56 He comes back to Austria, comes up with Red Bull,
01:59 and it's a huge hit.
02:01 ♪ Red Bull gives you wings ♪
02:04 Red Bull is the poster child for functional drinks.
02:07 It has caffeine, it has sugar replacements,
02:09 it's got B vitamins, it's got some taurine.
02:12 It was very cleverly marketed as something
02:15 that would enhance your endurance,
02:17 reaction speed, and concentration.
02:19 But there was actually no evidence for that.
02:23 40 years later, the appetite for functional drinks
02:26 is still there, but what we want is slightly different.
02:30 People are way more aware of the health downsides
02:33 of ultra-processed foods, the health downsides of pollution,
02:36 everything that you're surrounded by
02:38 that is so hard to avoid.
02:40 And there's so much appetite for something
02:41 that you could just switch in your life
02:43 that would help you a little bit.
02:46 COVID was when you really started to see
02:48 this kind of functional beverage explode as an industry.
02:52 Drinks that are marketed as not bad for you,
02:55 but good for you.
02:56 Drinks that potentially cut out toxins
02:59 and add health benefits.
03:01 This market is growing, and it's growing fast,
03:04 and brands are rushing to adapt to this market.
03:07 They're trying to put out drinks that really speak
03:09 to our desire to hack the gut-brain connection.
03:13 So there's this idea that perhaps
03:15 if you nourish your gut health,
03:16 it will also improve your mental wellbeing
03:19 and your overall wellbeing.
03:21 A telltale sign that this is the area
03:24 of the drinks industry that is really buzzing right now
03:27 is the fact that celebrities are flocking into it.
03:30 There are so many celebrities
03:32 putting out functional drinks lines.
03:34 - Cheers with my frosted grape.
03:36 - The Rock, Katy Perry, and Bella Hadid.
03:39 Everyone's jumping on this, everyone's excited about this,
03:42 but there isn't really any scientific evidence
03:44 that these properties function for you in a drink.
03:47 Celebrities are also obsessed
03:49 with the drink called kombucha,
03:50 which is a type of probiotic drink.
03:53 Probiotic drinks are huge and growing fast.
03:57 The probiotics drink industry
03:58 is valued at $40 billion worldwide,
04:01 and by 2033, it's expected to be valued at $99 billion.
04:06 This area of the drinks industry
04:08 essentially contains two types of drinks.
04:10 Prebiotic sodas are supposed to essentially prepare your gut
04:15 to better consume nutrients.
04:17 Probiotic drinks are supposed to fill your gut
04:19 with healthy bacteria to enhance your health.
04:22 Both of these types of drinks are in theory
04:25 meant to nourish your gut health.
04:26 So are these drinks good for you?
04:29 That's actually a really hard question to answer.
04:32 Firstly, none of these drinks are regulated by the FDA,
04:35 and they're making some pretty hefty claims
04:38 about enhancing your health
04:40 without having to work within a scientific framework.
04:43 Packaging also plays a huge role here,
04:45 and brands are speaking to our appetite
04:48 for some of these ingredients like probiotics,
04:50 nootropics, adaptogens, CBD,
04:53 but they don't have to meet
04:54 any kind of scientific requirement
04:56 in terms of what's included,
04:58 what the strain is, what the concentration is,
05:00 and they don't really have to put much detail on the label.
05:03 Lastly, we still don't know very much
05:06 about how to influence our gut health,
05:08 and the issue here is that these drinks
05:10 are really making bold claims
05:12 that they can improve your gut health,
05:14 can improve your brain health,
05:15 can calm down your nervous system.
05:17 When we actually know very little about how to do that,
05:20 we also haven't really studied these ingredients very much.
05:23 So it's a lot of uncertainties for drinks
05:25 that are three times the price of soda.
05:28 Here's how you can make a decision
05:30 about what drinks to buy
05:32 when you're going down the supermarket aisle.
05:34 Firstly, check the label.
05:35 Keep an eye out for drinks with vague claims.
05:39 So things like supports skin elasticity
05:43 or enhances brain health.
05:45 These are really vague terms that don't mean anything.
05:48 So probiotics.
05:50 Many drinks just say probiotics,
05:52 but they don't say what kind of probiotic is in it.
05:55 So I would recommend picking a drink
05:57 that names the probiotic
05:58 and knowing what that probiotic is before you drink it.
06:01 If you are trying to be healthy
06:03 by picking one of these drinks,
06:04 do check the label and make sure they are lower in sugar.
06:07 Soda is a very easy way to consume way more sugar
06:10 than you realize you're consuming.
06:12 So there is little to no hardcore science
06:15 behind these drinks.
06:17 That doesn't mean that they don't have any benefits.
06:20 A lot of these drinks do contain ingredients
06:23 that have been used for centuries
06:25 in cultures around the world,
06:27 like green tea, ashwagandha, ginseng.
06:30 The thing to be aware of is brands capitalizing
06:34 on our natural health concerns
06:36 by making bold claims that go way beyond what we know.
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