Certain Classes of Dietary Supplements Contain Drugs More Often Than Others 
​[Thursday, October 18, 2018]

A review of ten years of FDA database on dietary supplements tainted with drugs shows that supplements intended for sexual enhancement, weight loss and muscle building accounted for more than 95% of the tainted products. There are more than 100,000 dietary supplement products available in the US accounting for annual sales of more than $140 billion. Most dietary supplements are safe. It is not clear how the drug ingredients end up in the supplements. There is no evidence that supplement manufacturers intentionally add drug ingredients to their products; most of the drug ingredients are likely either contaminants from the raw material sources or degradation products of the components of the supplements. Most dietary supplements are not subjected to the same level of release testing as done for pharmaceutical products. The review blames the FDA for not conducting a thorough surveillance of the supplements sold in the US market, but it would be impractical to expect FDA to test all products sold in the US market to find the few that contain drug contaminants. FDA relies on consumer complaints and random checks only, which seems a practical compromise to meet its jurisdictional responsibilities within the resources it has. By identifying the classes of supplements with most issues, the survey can help FDA focus its resources only on supplements intended for sexual enhancement, weight loss and muscle building, which seems a reasonable immediate outcome of the survey. Anything more would require changing the laws.