Is Truehope’s EMPowerplus Multivitamin Supplement Effective? A Critical Analysis of the Research

Abstract

Truehope is a company that formulated EMPowerplus, a multivitamin and mineral supplement. The company states that the supplement is the most researched in the world with 34 publications. It claims that EMPowerplus is proven to be effective for a variety of mental health disorders. To ascertain whether such an extraordinary claim is accurate, I critically examined all the published journal articles pertaining to the supplement. Overall, I found that the overwhelming majority of the studies had significant flaws and were too weak and poorly done to substantiate Truehope's claim about the supplement's effectiveness. It is concluded that the people of Truehope are engaging in pseudoscience and should modify their statements about their products to be more honest and accurate. It is hoped that through this paper consumers will learn to cherish the scientific method and strive to apply it by thinking critically when they come across products with extraordinary claims, in order to distinguish items that are evidence-based from those that are not, and to avoid being potentially scammed.