Within a massive, multi-billion-dollar global supplement marketplace, sleep and mental wellness, healthspan and longevity, active nutrition, women’s health, gut health, weight management and beauty-from-within presented as top need states. These health categories, in turn, spurred growth for a range of ingredients, most notably magnesium, mushrooms, NAD+, creatine, turmeric, adaptogens, probiotics, protein, fiber and collagen.
Emerging research and regulatory action also came to bear, offering both promise and restriction as both emphasize safety, efficacy and a baseline understanding of personalized nutrition. This has affected not only product innovation and positioning but delivery systems, the use of advanced tech and the direction of supplement science.
Sleep and mental wellness top of mind
In an era defined by the encroachment of brain rot, hustle culture and collective stress, consumers are increasingly seeking out natural solutions to support mood, sleep, focus and overall mental acuity.
Insights from ingredient supplier ADM’s 2025 Sleep, Stress & Mood Report pointed to a widening sleep satisfaction gap and growing consumer focus on the connection between rest and overall well-being. Survey results show that 76% of global consumers believe sleep quality impacts their daily feelings, and 74% see it affecting their overall quality of life. Factors influencing sleep include feelings of stress or anxiety, difficulty falling or staying asleep, screentime before bed, physical pain or discomfort and inconsistent sleep schedules.
The report indicates that consumers are turning to B vitamins, omega-3s, protein, probiotics/postbiotics and prebiotics/fiber for mental well-being, while chamomile, magnesium, melatonin, vitamins B, C and D, and lavender rank among the top ingredients for sleep and stress support. Tart cherry for sleep support also gained momentum, backed by a Sleepy Girl Mocktail TikTok revival, newly published studies and product innovation.
Data published earlier in the year by market research and insights firm Lumina Intelligence identified sleep as top health goal among 6,000 consumers surveyed across the United States, Europe and Asia. While the survey noted that the importance of sleep peaked in younger Millennials, over 50% across almost all age groups prioritize a good night’s rest. This aligns with World Health Organization (WHO) data showing that nearly one-third of the global population suffers from inadequate sleep either due to problems falling or staying asleep.
According to the 2026 trends predictions from market research firm SPINS, stress and mood support products will continue to prosper in the coming year as the population and particularly younger generations continue to experience a rise in stress and anxiety. Data collected from the SPINS Natural Channel + Multi-Outlet and SPINS Amazon Market Measurement for the 52 weeks ending Nov. 30 identified ashwagandha ($202 million), magnesium ($387 million), GABA ($36 million), L-theanine ($44) as top sellers for stress and mood support. As ingredient to watch in the category, SPINS predicts saffron as up-and-coming mood balancer and serotonin booster. Shatavari, the “Queen of Herbs”, also made a splash this year with launches from big-name suppliers targeting women’s health based on a long history of Ayurvedic use for balancing the Doshas to address underlying stress, anxiety and hormonal imbalances that contribute to sleep disturbances.
In September, the two-day “Sleep in a Bottle” virtual workshop organized by the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) recognized the bidirectional relationships between sleep and co-morbidities like depression and anxiety. It also noted the need for more rigorous, longitudinal research to understand multi-system, dynamic interactions between sleep and supplements in addition to determining the safety and efficacy of the nearly 2,700 products labeled for sleep use in its Dietary Supplement Label Database. These include products containing melatonin (53%), magnesium (21%) and GABA (13%), as well as a long list of botanical ingredients.
Weight management evolution and the peptide phenomenon
In 2024, the supporting role in the weight management category went to supplements that could enhance active lifestyle, address the gaps and issues created by suppressed hunger or that took their shot at marketing GLP-1 modulation.
In 2025, the supplement industry was advised to scale back GLP-1-adjacent claims, a warning aired by the high-profile class-action complaint against Kourtney Kardashian Barker’s Lemme GLP-1 Daily Supplement. The case raised truth-in-advertising concerns about whether a supplement could legitimately impart similar benefits to a pharmaceutical. It argued that any alleged GLP-1 agonist effect is negligible relative to prescription drugs and that, at any rate, GLP-1 produced by the body would be rapidly broken down by digestive enzymes, making such small increases unlikely to be effective.
Meanwhile, much of the market has leaned into addressing the side effects of GLP-1 drugs. The ingredients include multivitamins, vitamin D, omega-3s to fill nutrient gaps; protein, whey, creatine and HMB to preserve muscle mass; and fiber and probiotics to ease digestive side effects. On Dec. 23, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy pill as the first once-daily, oral GLP-1 receptor agonist for weight loss, with a U.S. launch slated for early January 2026.
Although the wellness ecosystem that jelled as a byproduct of the GLP-1 boom continues to drive the momentum in this subcategory, McKinsey & Company’s 2025 Future of Wellness trends survey found that exercise remains the most common form of weight management—indicating that active nutrition as a category will continue to hold a significant share of consumer interest. There is also the growing market of individuals discontinuing medication who want to maintain their results.
Beyond rapid weight loss, the success and widespread media coverage of GLP-1 drugs created a halo effect for the overall category of peptides, which saw consumers and social media hype looking to other short chains amino acids for a range of outcomes—albeit with a misunderstanding of the difference between regulated pharmaceuticals and unapproved research-grade chemicals.
Food-grade peptides, on the other hand are already well-known for their collagen applications in the beauty space and have made their way into other categories. In its 2025 Health and Wellness Trends Report, The Vitamin Shoppe, predicted peptides as the next frontier in sports for their performance enhancing and recovery benefits, reporting that “searches for peptides on vitaminshoppe.com have exploded over 550% in 2025.” Presented as biological messengers that optimize cellular function, these compounds also slot nicely into the increasingly popular self-care and longevity narrative.
Prioritizing years spent in good health and the leap of faith
The inaugural Nutra Healthspan Summit held in London in November was testament to the entrenchment of the concept of healthspan (years spend in good health) and the consolidation of thought and supplement development around the hallmarks of aging.
It also highlighted that longevity and healthspan—still wrestling with and growing into definitions, biomarkers and outcomes—require a considerable leap of faith from consumers in a wider supplement market that is evolving from trust in marketing promise and social media hype to proof through scientific substantiation and real-world results.
According to survey data collected by Lumina Intelligence, sarcopenia, energy, mental focus, metabolism rank as top healthy aging related concerns, while purchasing decisions are negatively affected by cost, safety concerns and perceived lack of evidence or research. In a market where beauty and wellness have blurred, companies like L’Oréal and Estée Lauder are using advanced diagnostics and AI to develop targeted formulations, moving away from traditional anti-aging language toward biological indicators of skin health. This, in particular, appeals to a rapidly growing Generation Z consumer segment that prioritizes appearance and aesthetics as core components of their healthspan and longevity.
McKinsey & Company also noted that younger generations have contributed to a cultural shift that reframes healthy aging as proactive rather than reactive. For the supplement industry, reaching preventative health pocket share requires marketing both shorter-term benefits like higher energy and longer-term benefits like mitochondrial function. Products for older consumers, McKinsey advises, should focus on meeting specific needs rather than simply making consumers feel younger.
One of the more stalwart determinants of successful aging identified is the ability to maintain an active lifestyle, which requires sustained strength, endurance, balance and both mental and physical agility. Vitamin D, omega-3s and exercise continue be among the most heavily researched and promoted for targeting the root causes of aging, but no other ingredient made larger inroads into the healthy, active aging category this year than creatine.
Once the powder of competitive athletes and gym bros, creatine has shed its reserved-for-sport skin and reemerged as the focus of a Creatine 2.0 research, education and market movement to combat muscle loss, improve bone health, boost brain function and enhance cellular energy while reducing age-related inflammation. This has also led to the exploration of new demographics, dosing strategies, forms and formats to expand access and improve precision outcomes.
The Vitamin Shoppe trends also noted that nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+)—a molecule found in every living cell that is essential to energy production, cell repair, metabolism and cell signaling—entered the mainstream as a “powerful supplement supporting cellular health, energy production and anti-aging goals.”
A market analysis conducted by business intelligence platform CPG Radar in October, however, indicated that the NAD+ supplement market experienced a dramatic shift as the year went on, defined by a surge in scientific curiosity but a collapse in sales.
According to the company, the data shows that an NAD+ market of easy sales based on anti-aging promises has completed its hype cycle, requiring companies to improve price-value propositions, innovate on bioavailability, target narrow, evidence-based use cases and provide robust clinical evidence to replace marketing narratives. This aligns with McKinsey trend data indicating that 50% of U.S. consumers list clinical effectiveness as a top purchasing factor.
Meanwhile, NAD+ precursors like nicotinamide riboside (NR) and nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) have become buzzwords in the longevity, biohacking and increasingly mainstream communities.
NMN reversal and action beyond the Hill
In September, the FDA declared NMN as legal ingredient in dietary supplements following consistent pressure from industry, which filed lawsuits and petitions challenging the FDA’s previous stance that NMN was excluded due to drug investigation.
This significant regulatory reversal, based on evidence dating to 2017 that NMN was marketed as a supplement before drug authorization, revises the agencies interpretation of the race-to-market clause of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994. Under this clause, a substance cannot be sold as a dietary supplement if it was previously approved as a drug (as in the case of CBD) or subject of substantial clinical investigations as potential new drug that were made public before it was marketed as a supplement.
“We now conclude that NMN is not excluded from the definition of dietary supplement under section 201(ff)(3)(B),” the FDA stated. “Specifically, although NMN was authorized for investigation as a new drug, and substantial clinical investigations of NMN have been instituted and made public, NMN was marketed as a dietary supplement in the United States before such authorization.”
Despite the FDA reversing course on NMN, industry groups continue to urge reform of the overall interpretive framework of the drug preclusion provision. They argue that the agency’s interpretation of the clause is flawed and favors pharmaceutical interests over innovation and competition from dietary supplements. What’s more, FDA may use confidential Investigational New Drug (IND) application dates as the trigger for preclusion, creating uncertainty and risk for supplement companies investing in research without knowing if an ingredient has become precluded.
In related news, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia announced its approval of NMN for use in dietary supplements on Dec. 10 following an extended regulatory process. The approval allows companies to formulate NMN into domestic products, whereas prior, NMN supplements could be made in Australia but only for export. NMN is also approved in Japan for use in Foods with Functional Claims, and Canada lists NMN in its Natural Health Products Ingredients Database for use in supplements for adults.
Self-regulation and testing initiatives
The industry saw a significant push toward more rigorous testing and validation, driven by consumer demand for evidence-backed products and efforts by organizations to improve quality and transparency. These initiatives ranged from third-party certification programs and advanced in-house lab capabilities to the application of artificial intelligence and new legislative requirements.
Amazon, the leading retailer for supplements, waited until the end of the year to announce that it was expanding its Third-Party Testing, Inspection and Certification (TIC) program, which will now require all dietary supplement sellers on the platform to demonstrate compliance with current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP). The retailer also began rolling out its Compliance Fast-Track program for those dietary supplements already certified by participating partners including BSCG, Clean Label Project, GRMA, Informed-Sport, NSF and USP. These certified products bypass manual documentation submission, enabling faster market entry.
Meanwhile, industry testing leader NOW Foods continued to detect failure through its quality testing program, initiated in 2017 to analyze supplements purchased from online retailers like Amazon for potency and quality. In March 2025, the natural products manufacture tested 25 Methyl B12 products and found that only 56% met or exceeded their label claims. Another round of testing in August 2025 of St. John’s wort supplements revealed widespread quality issues, with only one out of 17 brands meeting hypericin claims and some containing synthetic dyes.
Niagen Biosciences, formerly Chromadex, analyzed 39 nicotinamide riboside (NR) supplement products purchased from Amazon and direct-to-consumer sites. According to findings released in February, only five met their label claims for NR and just five more came within 90% to 99% of the stated amount.
In August, independent botanical and mushroom testing laboratory Alkemist Labs—which recently expanded its suite of service—released its Herbs and Fungi We’re Watching 2025 listing of 20 ingredients flagged as requiring extra scrutiny. Reasons for test failure identified include species substitution, plant part mismatch, week phytochemical fingerprints and fungal stage or part confusion.
Third party certifiers including Eurofins, SGS and NSF also continued to add lab capabilities with advanced tech, comprehensive product certification schemes and strategic partnerships to enhance analytical testing for identity, potency and contaminants. In addition, the Dietary Supplement Laboratory Quality Assurance Program (DSQAP) Consortium was formalized in 2025. Through this voluntary program, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provides participating labs with tools and test samples to advance reliable and comparable testing that meets FDA cGMP requirements.
A fixture of the industry since 2011, the ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulteration Prevention Program (BAPP) continued its focus on botanical quality by releasing key guidance throughout the year. This included bacopa mislabeling and adulteration guidance in April, an echinacea adulteration bulletin in July and an ashwagandha laboratory guidance document in October—bringing the program’s total number of published peer-reviewed documents to 99, with the 100th coming early this year.
Newer entrants like health tech platform SuppCo arrived on the scene as a vetter of supplement science and efficacy to help consumers make evidence-based health decisions. In April, it released the public beta of its digital health app that returns test scores using a large database, a proprietary TrustScore system and third-party lab testing to “cut through conflicting advice and marketing.” By June, the company was making its first media wave by testing creatine gummies on the market (like others before) and reporting that only two of six popular brands tested met muster. Subsequent testing rounds followed, returning failing results for lesser-known brands of NAD+, urolithin A and berberine, culminating in a 2025 retrospective reporting that half of the 44 supplements purchased by SuppCo on Amazon failed to meet active ingredient label claims.
There was also industry pushback against testing gone too far when the Clean Label Project made mainstream news after releasing its 2024-2025 Protein Powder Category Report, showing that of 160 products tested, 47% exceeded California Proposition 65 safety thresholds for toxic metals. Critics argued that the report lacked sufficient transparency and critical context that could mislead consumers into thinking that trace levels well below federally-established safety thresholds translate to a serious health risk.
Still waiting on the golden age of dietary supplements
All these forces and factors played out amid global uncertainty driven by persistent geopolitical instability, economic volatility and budget gridlock, while an industry with high MAHA hopes continued to wait on the golden age of dietary supplements.
Following Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s confirmation as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, some believed that the supplement marketplace would experience a marked expansion as a result of the dismantling of regulatory constraints.
Fast-forward a year, and the industry is either in the throes of four-year growing pains or coming to terms with great expectations gone awry.
In the last 12 months, new or threatened tariffs disrupted supply chains, impacting ingredient costs, availability and forecasting. Rapid and sweeping workforce reductions—particularly within the FDA—affected inspection efficiency, slowed communication and guidance and increased industry responsibility for compliance with good manufacturing practices. At the SoCal Dietary Supplement Consortium in September, the FDA made it clear that industry would have to keep up with standards, regulations and quality control if it wants to help make America healthy again.
Other federal regulatory and legislative action affecting the dietary supplement industry in 2025 included contemplating the end of self-GRAS, scrutiny of Made in America claims, updated communication on the DSHEA disclaimer and the relaunch of the bipartisan Congressional Dietary Supplement Caucus to advance education, oversight and science-based policy. The industry is also waiting to see how dietary supplements will be treated in a 2026 revision of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines.
At the state level, California mandated heavy-metal testing for prenatal supplements commencing 2027, and more states introduced bills to restrict the access of minors to weight-loss and muscle-building products. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), which places end-life product management responsibility on producers, is also being rolled out state by state. Citing the burden imposed by a patchwork of conflicting rules, industry continues to express and act on interest in advancing federal preemption of state restrictions.
Beyond state and federal action, class action was also on trend. According to an analysis published in Regulatory Focus in October by attorneys with Amin, Wasserman Gurnani LLP, the U.S. dietary supplement industry faces an increasing risk of class action lawsuits driven by claims related to labeling, testing and compliance. Current trends include challenges to FDA disclaimers for structure/function claims, inaccurate protein %DV declarations and discrepancies in labeled ingredient amounts. Here, decisions show that the courts continue to apply the reasonable consumer standard, and increasing emphasis on context, qualifiers and disclaimers matter have strengthened that defense. The analysis also addresses lawsuits targeting greenwashing, slack-fill and synthetic ingredient claims.
In Europe, industry faces impending regulations related to the harmonization of maximum levels of vitamins and minerals, the authorization of new ingredients and novel foods, health claims, safety assessments, and packaging waste and other environmental concerns, and Asia-Pacific expects a range of new labeling, manufacturing, registration and certification updates and requirements.
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