Dietary Supplements Not Regulated

The active ingredients in supplements that have effects on the body are chemicals.

Dietary supplements not regulated. More is not necessarily better. Manufacturers are required to produce dietary supplements in a quality manner and ensure that they do not contain contaminants or impurities and are accurately labeled according to current good. If it is new the manufacturer must provide the fda with reasonable evidence that the new ingredient is safe before the supplement is marketed to the public.

If you re really into these things you can read within title 21 of the federal food drug and cosmetic act the 1994 dietary supplement health and education act dshea and subsequent federal good manufacturing practices gmps. When you take. Dietary supplements are not intended to treat diagnose cure.

The supplement industry an industry which we have written about numerous times is a 30 billion industry with more than half of americans taking some form of supplement. However as david seres acsh friend and director of medical nutrition at columbia university medical center points out in his piece featured in cnn opinion on the 20th anniversary of the dietary supplement health and. Unless the supplement has a magical quality the supplement must have a substance in it that has a beneficial effect on the body.

A dietary supplement is considered new if it contains an ingredient not recognized as a food substance unless it was sold as a supplement before october 1994. Whatever their form may be dshea places dietary supplements ds in a special category under the general umbrella of foods and therefore the fda still has the responsibility to help regulate the industry albeit a lesser role. Part of the fda 101 series this article describes how dietary supplements are regulated and offers safety tips for consumers.

Specifically manufacturers of dietary supplements are required to notify the fda of the use of any new dietary ingredients ndis that were not marketed before october 15 1994. First anyone taking a dietary supplement is doing so to improve his or her health. That s a problem because as the fda admits there is no authoritative list of dietary ingredients that were marketed in dietary supplements before october 15 th.