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Wellness is big business and why shouldn’t it be – we all have a desire not only to look better, but also to feel better. From your basic face masks to IV drips of collagen and vitamins, it has become a trillion dollar industry.

Treatments that were once only available to the stars have infiltrated the average person’s life, but what happens when the reality of wellness falls drastically short of the promise? Ashley Oerman, deputy lifestyle director at Cosmopolitan magazine explained on an episode of Archive on 4 that “wellness is just a sexier word for health. But because it’s been used to market everything from face masks to supplemental powders, basically ‘self-care’ and ‘wellness’ are just words used to sell women things that they don’t need.”

With the launch of The Orgasm Cult podcast, we take a look at some of the most controversial stories involving the wellness industry.

It is said to offer a wide range of medicinal properties but this treatment isn’t for the faint hearted. Used for thousands of years in traditional medicine, bee venom therapy is when the venom of a bee is administered to fight ailments. It has been making a comeback in recent years, with the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Victoria Beckham raving about its properties.

Containing anti-inflammatory substances, it is said to help with the appearance of acne, arthritis, wrinkles and alleviate the symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Little research has been done into the benefits of bee venom and the side effects, but there’s not enough scientific evidence to support the above claims.

Actor Gerald Butler almost died after having the therapy and going into anaphylactic shock. In Spain, a 55-year-old woman wasn’t so lucky and sadly died during an apitherapy session.

Period tracker apps

Apps have become a necessity in many of our lives. Offering convenience and ease, the wellness phenomenon has taken care to capitalise on it. Period tracking apps claim to help people with family planning, calculating ovulation days and indicating underlying health issues.

With technology comes great responsibility but some have shown great irresponsibility. Maya, one of these apps which had over five million downloads, was believed to be sharing extensive personal user info with Facebook.

A study by Privacy International, a UK based charity, claimed “As a result of PI's research and advocacy on six popular menstruation apps, four of them made changes in their data sharing practices or launched internal investigations. These changes positively impacted on the privacy of more than five million people.”

Perhaps you’ve heard of Max Gerson, a practitioner who believes that you can cure the most serious of diseases simply by eating fruits and vegetables. Gerson’s claims have been disputed many times over since his death, so how could Belle Gibson, a social media influencer from Tasmania, use Gerson’s theories to convince millions of people that she cured her own cancer?

According to a book by Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, the journalists who uncovered her scam, they said “a burgeoning, whitewashed wellness industry that eschews science in favour of aesthetics, a social media-driven culture where fake news proliferates, and the hopelessness felt by cancer patients”, paved the way for Gibson’s lies.

Her app, called The Whole Pantry, launched in 2013 and contained alternative recipes that claim to cure cancers, bone ailments and various serious illnesses. It was downloaded over 200,000 times and named Apple's best food and diet app. The following year, a book of the same name was published. But later it was revealed she had fabricated the whole thing. She lied about curing her own brain, blood, kidney, spleen, uterine and liver cancer with the diet. She lied about giving thousands of dollars to various charities and causes. Her whole narrative was a lie - she never even had cancer.

Alternative treatments of cancer have long given false hope to patients. Sean Walsh, a 23-year-old musician from Liverpool died in an attempt to cure his lymphoma with a mixture of alternative therapies. A study by Yale School of Medicine reported in The Independent in 2017 found that 'cancer sufferers who turn to alternative therapies in preference to conventional medicine are more than twice as likely to die'.

Starting off as an email newsletter, Goop was founded in 2008 by actress turned alternative health enthusiast, Gwyneth Paltrow. It has now grown into a luxury wellness brand claiming to “operate from a place of curiosity and non-judgment... we start hard conversations, crack open taboos, and look for connection and resonance everywhere we can find it.”

One of the many things sold on Goop are jade eggs: gemstones inserted into the vagina to strengthen pelvic floor muscles and regulate menstrual cycles, at a cost of US$60. However gynaecologists say there’s not enough scientific evidence to prove these claims. In 2017, the company agreed to pay out US$145,000 for making “unscientific claims” about the jade eggs it was selling.

The high priest of the Church of Satan, Magus Peter H Gilmore, described a psychic vampire as someone who wants to 'inspire you with guilt so that you will feel obligated to do things for them.'

Zoe Taylor-Crane of Paper Crane Apothecary came up with the idea of a mist to repel such people, containing love, moonlight, rosewater, lavender, sonically-tuned water and reiki-charged crystals. The mist is said to reduce negativity and give the user resilience to cope with such energy-draining people.

Using crystals to aid healing goes back thousands of years. However with the spray retailing at $27 a bottle, warding off these supposed vampires does not come cheap. Whilst it might not protect the user from emotional damage, it has been said to smell lovely.

Radio 4's The Orgasm Cult investigates global wellness company One Taste, whose founder believed that orgasm would one day sit alongside yoga and meditation as the self-care practice for the modern empowered woman. Except that now the FBI is making enquiries in to One Taste over allegations including sex trafficking, prostitution and violations of labour law.

Join Nastaran Tavakoli-Far as she investigates One Taste through exclusive interviews with former employees and asks big questions about the wellness industry.