Widely Available Supplements Contain Unapproved Drugs
​​[Posted on: Thursday, November 30, 2017]

Dietary supplements are frequently found to have major quality issues so this should not come as a surprise that another formal study found that about half the products did not contain the active ingredient on the label, about 40% contained other unapproved drugs, about 1 in four products contained products not listed on the label and 60% products contained different amounts of the active ingredient than described on the label. What should be concerning is that such products are available to the consumer without much regulation. The GMP rules for dietary supplements were implemented more than a decade ago, and FDA has stepped up enforcement of the laws on supplement manufacturers but the sheer volume of the supplement market makes it hard to regulate. The best solution seems to be consumer awareness and studies like these that create credible evidence against violators. However, there are limits to these solutions. The consumer generally assumes that any product legally available in a store front or online is credible and regulated. Most consumers are unaware that supplements not only can be sold without any formal approval but do not even require registration with FDA. Most supplements contain benign ingredients that pose minimal risk to consumers, but those containing drugs or, worse, unapproved drugs should be regulated more strongly. But most such violations are hard to detect and only come to light either with such published reports or when someone get hurts with the consumed supplement. And this is probably going to stay like this in the foreseeable future.