Nikki Reed opens up about the years of struggle with her health that pushed her deep into the world of wellness.
The 37-year-old actress, who now co-runs her own wellness brand, The absorption companywith husband Ian Somerhalder, revealed on The Squeeze podcast that she has been battling a mysterious health issue for years.
In her search for answers, she turned to wellness products as doctors struggled to identify what was wrong, but Reed said many of the remedies she was sold simply didn’t work.
Denouncing what she considers predatory practices, she told host Taylor Lautner, during her appearance on the latest episode of her podcast, that the industry was “capitalizing on people’s hope.”
“The placebo effect is real, but it doesn’t work on me,” she began, referring to the phenomenon where a person feels better from a treatment without active therapeutic benefit.
Additionally, Reed explained that during her “crazy health scare,” she consulted top medical experts, researched obsessively, and always came up empty-handed.
“I was seeing, as you can imagine, great doctors because I’m an information seeker. I look for the best doctors I can and I do research for years and years,” Reed said.
Despite her efforts, she added: “I couldn’t figure it out and it drove me crazy, but what made me just as crazy was the amount of stuff I was being sold that didn’t work.”
She has not been shy about criticizing the booming supplement and wellness market.
“Not only do they not work, but it’s an industry that capitalizes on people’s hope because they hope it will work,” Reed said.
“They take these things and spend their hard-earned money with the massive belief that they are going to improve themselves because of an industry that takes advantage of them,” she concluded.
