Nikki Reed slams wellness industry after being misled for years

Nikki Reed is opening up about the years-long health struggle that pushed her deep into the wellness world.

The 37-year-old actress, who now co-runs her own wellness brand, The Absorption Company, with husband Ian Somerhalder, revealed on The Squeeze podcast that she battled a mysterious medical condition for years. 

In her search for answers, she turned to wellness products while doctors struggled to pinpoint what was wrong, but Reed said that many of the remedies she was sold simply did not work.

Calling out what she sees as predatory practices, she told host Taylor Lautner while appearing on the latest episode of his podcast that the industry is “capitalizing on people’s hope.”

"The placebo effect is real, but it doesn’t work on me," she began, referring to the phenomenon in which a person feels better from a treatment with no active therapeutic benefit.

Moreover, Reed explained that during her “crazy health scare,” she consulted top medical experts, researched obsessively, and still came up empty-handed.

“I was seeing, as you can imagine, great doctors because I’m an information seeker. I’m seeking out the best doctors that I can and really researching for years and years,” Reed claimed.

Despite her efforts, she added, “I couldn’t figure this out and it was making me crazy, but what was making me equally as crazy was the amount of things I was being sold that weren’t working."

She did not hold back in her criticism of the booming supplement and wellness market. 

“Not only do they not work, but it’s an industry that’s capitalizing on people’s hope because they’re hoping that it works," Reed said.

"They’re taking these things, and they’re spending their hard-earned money on this massive belief that they’re going to get better from an industry that’s taking advantage of them," she concluded.