Make Me Well: TV Doctor Xand van Tulleken Dismantles Wellness Myths

Dr Xand van Tulleken's new book, Make Me Well, targets the spurious science behind modern wellness products. The subtitle promises a takedown of snake oil, from collagen powders to turmeric lattes. Van Tulleken, a practising doctor and familiar television presence, delivers it with receipts.

The most striking chapter concerns vitamin D, the supplement nobody expected to be controversial. Even the NHS — which Van Tulleken notes is "hardly a wellspring of quackery" — advises a daily dose in autumn and winter, when sunlight-derived deficiency becomes a genuine risk. Vitamin D is the nutrient we absorb mainly from sunlight and which keeps bones strong. So far, so sensible.

What went wrong with vitamin D science?

Van Tulleken qualified as a doctor in the early 2000s, a period of high optimism in vitamin D research. Large studies then linked the vitamin not just to bone health but to cancer, heart disease and dementia. The ambition of that era was vast.

"The range of potential problems to be solved was dizzying," Van Tulleken writes in Make Me Well. It's a telling line. When a single supplement promises to fix everything, the skeptical reader should reach for their wallet — and hold it tight.

The author, twin brother to Dr Chris van Tulleken (author of Ultra-Processed People, the 2023 bestseller on the food industry), brings the same family instinct for puncturing commercial hype. Where Chris took on ultra-processed food, Xand takes on the supplement aisle. The resemblance in method is hard to miss: follow the evidence, then follow the money.

Why does this book matter now?

Wellness is a sprawling market, and its products line both pharmacy shelves and social media feeds with equal confidence. Van Tulleken's contribution is to sort the defensible from the fanciful. Vitamin D in winter: backed by the NHS. Collagen for glowing skin and turmeric as a cure-all: rather less so.

His tone helps. Reviewers describe the doctor as "tiggerish" — bouncy, enthusiastic, never lecturing. That matters for a subject where the usual choices are breathless influencer hype or dry public-health leaflets. This book sits usefully between the two.

The deeper point is about trust. Early-2000s vitamin D research raised hopes that later evidence failed to fully support, and the wellness industry still trades on that residue of scientific optimism. A book that recalibrates expectations, one supplement at a time, earns its shelf space.

Make Me Well arrives as the van Tulleken twins quietly build a family franchise of evidence-first scepticism. Readers who finished Ultra-Processed People and wanted the same treatment for their vitamin cabinet now have their prescription.