Maybe you're already taking a supplement or considering using one. Multivitamins, vitamin D, echinacea and fish oil are among the many dietary supplements available on store shelves or online. Dietary supplements can be beneficial to health, but they can also pose health risks. That's why it's important to talk to a health professional to help you decide if a supplement is right for you.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a federal agency responsible for regulating products that affect public health, such as food products, pharmaceutical drugs, medical devices, cosmetics, and even tobacco products. The FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) is primarily responsible for the agency's oversight of dietary supplements because they fall under the food category. The FDA plays an essential role in ensuring the safety of the products we use every day, but it doesn't pre-approve all the sectors it oversees. According to the FDA, drugs are meant to treat, prevent, mitigate, diagnose, or cure diseases.
Human clinical trials must demonstrate that a drug is safe and effective for its intended use before it is pre-approved by the FDA for consumer use. On the other hand, dietary supplements are for nutritional purposes only and do not require prior approval from the FDA before being offered for sale to the consumer. The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) defined the role of supplements and outlined what dietary supplement companies can legally say about their products. The law states that since supplements are not drugs, supplement companies cannot imply, insinuate, or claim that their products diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent diseases of any kind.
The FDA has also interpreted some normal conditions as precursors or markers of diseases. That's why you might see inaccurate wording about what a supplement does: it's made to comply with FDA guidelines on approved dietary supplement claims. The FDA monitors the manufacture and labeling of supplements and regularly inspects companies to ensure that they comply with all regulations. If a supplement company doesn't comply with FDA regulations, the FDA may prohibit them from selling their product.
While vitamins and nutritional or dietary supplements can be beneficial to health, they can also pose health risks. It's important to talk to a health professional to help you decide if a supplement is right for you. With the support of Senator Orrin Hatch and an enormous investment from the supplement industry, some statements are 100% legal and may lead consumers to believe that the supplement can protect them from COVID-19, but that's not the case according to Dr. It should be noted that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not have the authority to review the safety and effectiveness of dietary supplements before they are marketed.
In general, even if a product is labeled as a dietary supplement, a product intended to treat, prevent, cure, or alleviate the symptoms of a disease is a drug and is subject to all requirements applicable to medications. For more detailed information on this topic, see a recent report from the AMA Council on Science and Public Health that updated and modernized the AMA's dietary supplement policy. The FDA (Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) participate.
