Beckham’s supplements promise better health — but the small print tells a different story

David Beckham was famous for the elegant curl he could put on the ball. When he took a free kick, the ball would begin on a straight trajectory before suddenly swerving at the last moment, leaving goalkeepers no time to react. The English footballer exploited a goalkeeper’s predictive error with his technique, luring them with a decoy.

Since retiring from professional soccer, Beckham has continued building a business empire around his image, using it to promote beauty products, produce content for Netflix and help push Inter Miami, the Major League Soccer team where Lionel Messi now plays.

In 2024, Beckham launched IM8, a nutritional supplements brand created with Prenetics Global, a health sciences company based in Hong Kong. IM8 began by selling two products: an all-in-one powder called Daily Ultimate Essentials, priced at $99 as a one-time purchase or $79 through a monthly subscription, and an anti-aging capsule called Daily Ultimate Longevity, available for $89 as a one-time purchase and $75 through a subscription. The product is advertised as concentrating the benefits of more than 20 supplements, with the implied cost savings. Depending on the quantity purchased, that works out to about $8 to $9 a day. “I wanted to create something that is a one-stop shop, one product that actually does it all,” Beckham says on the IM8 website.

“Well done for taking the first steps toward better health and wellness!” the former footballer is heard saying in an introductory video on his page. “We’re committed to enhancing your health and wellbeing with our innovative nutrition essentials.”

Among the claims made about the anti-ageing supplements is that “by addressing the root causes of aging — not just the symptoms — IM8 helps you feel your best today, while supporting your health for the long run.” The marketing also refers to “therapeutic dosing” and “clinically proven” formulas.

Hearing or reading such claims, it would be easy for someone to come away with the impression that IM8’s products improve health. But, as many goalkeepers learned too late, with Beckham it is often worth waiting until the very end to discover the full story. At the bottom of every page on the IM8 website appears the following disclaimer: “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”

Visitors to the site might also conclude that there is a substantial scientific effort behind IM8’s products. The all-in-one supplement, the company says alongside photographs of people in lab coats and working with microscopes, was developed with experts from the Mayo Clinic and NASA. IM8 also highlights its NSF Certified for Sport accreditation as evidence that the products have undergone independent testing. Those tests, however, do not assess whether IM8 boosts energy levels or slows aging; they merely verify that the contents match the label and are free from banned or toxic substances.

IM8 further claims that, based on a 12-week clinical trial, 95% of those taking Daily Ultimate Essentials felt more energetic, 80% reported better sleep and 85% said their digestion improved. The study, which involved 60 participants, was relatively basic. Beyond the subjective questionnaire underpinning those figures, the only objective measures recorded were weight and body composition, blood pressure and the incidence of adverse effects. There were no detailed blood analyses, metabolic markers or other more sophisticated assessments.

Despite counting specialists from prestigious institutions such as Cedars-Sinai and the Mayo Clinic among its scientific advisers, IM8 chose to conduct its trial at the San Francisco Research Institute, a private organization that carries out clinical studies commissioned by companies and sponsors seeking data to support their products.

The trial results have yet to be made public, despite the company already using the data for marketing purposes. EL PAÍS sought more details about the science behind David Beckham’s supplements by contacting Suzanne Devkota, director of the Human Microbiome Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles and one of the “brilliant minds behind IM8.” Devkota did not respond. Instead, an IM8 spokesperson replied, saying she would be “happy to answer any questions” about the brand. After several days of waiting — and another email requesting more time — a response finally arrived nearly a week later.

“The IM8 team cannot provide comments at this time due to lack of availability,” the company wrote. Confidentially, they explained why they were somewhat busy: “IM8 is relaunching its flagship formula as Daily Ultimate Essentials Pro and introducing two new flavors — Mango Passionfruit and Orange Lemon — to combat flavor fatigue next week.” They also offered to send a complimentary sample.

In an email sent last December to a user in Spain, Danny Yeung, IM8’s co-founder and CEO, wrote that he had always believed “the supplements industry could benefit from greater transparency.” “That is why I am starting this series of personal emails to shorten that distance and invite you behind IM8’s curtain,” he wrote.

However, a few days after EL PAÍS contacted the company seeking information, and without any explanation from its communications team, Beckham’s supplements were no longer available to users accessing the company’s website from Spain.

“Scientifically, it has no basis and goes against one of the first principles of supplementation: take only what you need,” says Juan del Coso, an expert in exercise physiology and sports nutrition at Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid. “If you put 92 ingredients together, you are going to provide doses below the optimal level, and there can also be interactions among supplements,” he says.

Del Coso concedes that “as a marketing product, it is interesting.” “Someone, without needing to understand supplementation, has come up with an idea: if there are several dietary supplements on the market, some with evidence and others less so, and people spend a lot of money buying several, then put everything into one product and tell consumers they are saving money,” he reflects.

“Perhaps the interesting thing here is that Beckham is the face, but there are other athletes doing similar things,” says Del Coso. “Now, in the supplements market, you don’t sell more because you have more scientific evidence. Instead of investing in proving a supplement is effective, market strategies are used to create the idea that it works. Nothing included there is harmful, but supplementation will not produce a significant change in people, or rather it is not proven that it will. That goes against what I try to teach my students: verify with scientific criteria.”

Regarding IM8’s trial, the professor believes they “take anthropometric measures that would not be sufficient even for the quality of an undergraduate thesis.”

Alberto Pérez, a sports science professor at the University of Alcalá, agrees that combining supplements can be a disadvantage: “When you combine them, rather than producing an additive effect, the opposite can happen, because sometimes, for example, supplements compete for absorption,” he says.

Pérez also reiterates a point commonly stressed by nutrition experts: “With a good diet, supplements are unnecessary, except in very specific cases such as people with deficiencies or athletes. Many times people try to fix things with a pill, not exercise, poor diet and lack of sleep, and all at a price that is outrageous for something that isn’t proven.”

At a presentation alongside Beckham, however, an IM8 spokesperson claimed that “even if you have the best diet, you still need extra fortification.”

What is clear is the growing public appetite for these products. The dietary supplements market is already worth close to $200 billion a year and is expected to exceed $400 billion by 2033.

“Now everyone, whether an accredited professional or not, launches their own supplement line,” says nutritionist Juan Revenga.

“The umbrella under which they market these products and make their claims is that of dietary supplements. They are not drugs, but they come in drops, powders or capsules that give them the look of medicine, yet unlike drugs they do not have to demonstrate efficacy nor is there science behind them, so what matters is a large investment in marketing and advertising,” he explains.

Revenga returns to a point made by his colleagues: “All vitamins, for example, have a role in metabolism, but giving more won’t improve the function, because there is a limiting factor, and once you reach the maximum, the function does not improve and it may even worsen.”

A final issue Revenga raises concerns what he sees as the legally questionable way supplements are promoted. “They are breaching advertising regulations,” he says.

“Those who give nutritional advice and show before-and-after images are not complying with the law, because that is a testimonial,” Revenga exemplifies. “People who provide nutritional advice and display before-and-after pictures are not complying with the law, because those are testimonials.”

The IM8 website is packed with endorsements from influencers, doctors and celebrities, including women’s world number one tennis player Aryna Sabalenka and NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo.

“How is it that, if the law is so clear, there are so many violators and nobody does anything?” asks Revenga. “Because we have a very developed regulatory framework [in Spain], like traffic law, but traffic authorities set up speed cameras and pursue infractions, and in this case that doesn’t happen.”

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition