Dietary supplements and the elephant in the room: Quality

From time to time, a new peer-reviewed paper shines light on quality problems in the dietary supplement industry.

Often, the ingredients — or quantities of ingredients — in nutraceutical products sold on Amazon and other e-commerce platforms are incongruous with the labels. NOW Foods has highlighted this unfortunate state of affairs in a years-long testing program, targeting lesser-known brands selling on Amazon and Walmart.com. The program has demonstrated that legions of consumers have unknowingly been victims of fraud because they are not getting what they paid for, or thought was actually in the product. Many shoppers are relying on these shoddy supplements to produce an advertised health benefit, or as alternatives for FDA-approved medicines that could actually help them.

Last week, we reported on research published in JAMA (the peer-reviewed medical journal published by the American Medical Association) that examined supplements marketed to members of the military. Only five of 30 supplements analyzed met label claims for strength and potency of ingredients, and most of the products contained ingredients banned by the U.S. Department of Defense.

That study included a reference to the practice of grouping many ingredients together within proprietary blends on labels. Valid business reasons may support this practice. But it is also a convenient way to hide the practice of “pixie dusting,” or using trace amounts of an ingredient, while implying a powerhouse benefit for the consumer.

Related:Elephant in the room: Proprietary blends provide fairy dusting camouflage

We haven’t even mentioned studies over the years led by Dr. Pieter Cohen of Harvard Medical School, which not only showed the presence of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in products marketed as supplements, but that brands continue to sell these dangerous products even after being flagged by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Trade associations and industry professionals might counter that these outlier brands are criminals and not the “responsible industry.” To consumers and the mainstream media, this is a distinction without a difference.

Quite simply, the elephant in the room today is quality, reliability and integrity — or embarrassingly enough, an absence of these attributes.

The likes of Nestlé, NOW Foods and Pharmavite may be the Ferraris and Lamborghinis of a $60-billion-plus industry. But in e-commerce especially, these powerful supplement brands — or automobiles to continue the car metaphor — must compete with inferior brands, or AMC Pacers and Ford Pintos. Unfortunately, unsavvy consumers searching for a bottle of gummies or pills can’t take a test drive first so may not discern the difference before spending their hard-earned money.

In a column published in February by Natural Products Insider, ChromaDex CEO Rob Fried advocated for the formation of a new group that would evaluate challenges that arise against existing quality, safety and efficacy standards.

The “substantial growth” of the industry since passage of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) “has not come from innovation, but rather an increase in the number of sellers — many of whom seem to care little about public health or about compliance,” Fried argued.

What can — and should — responsible companies do to rectify the problem raised by Fried, other than grumble and blame regulators for inaction? In a series of columns and original reporting over the next several months, Natural Products Insider will strive to answer these prickly questions.

Join us for the conversation in editorials, call our reporters with leads for enterprising news stories and be a part of the solution. As the industry approaches the 30th anniversary of DSHEA, let this be a time of reflection and self-improvement.