Buyer Beware! Navigating Supplement Safety

In Victorian times, bakers used cheap plaster dust instead of flour, arsenic dye gave clothing a beautiful - and deadly - green color, and opium and cocaine were laced into children’s tonics and colic remedies. Thanks to consumer activism and legislation, we now have regulations requiring truthful labels and safe products…mostly. It’s still challenging for shoppers to research product safety, and that is doubly true when it comes to supplements and natural remedies.

Supplements and herbal remedies in the United States are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA). These regulations require supplement makers to have accurate labels, ensure their products are safe and to avoid making medical claims such as treating or curing diseases. Unlike products classified as drugs, there is no approval process, so any manufacturer can put a substance into pills and market it as a dietary supplement.

Testing, monitoring and enforcement is nowhere near sufficient to keep track of the tens of thousands of products on the market. We’re in a better state than the Victorians were with their laudanum cough syrup, but it’s still ‘buyer beware’ when it comes to supplements.

Some recent actions against dietary supplements in the US include eleven products marketed as ‘all-natural sexual enhancers’ found to contain Viagra, and ten different supplements and herbal remedies advertised as pain-relief for joints or arthritis which contained prescription anti-inflammatories and corticosteroids. Other products have been recalled for microbial or heavy metal contamination, or because independent testing found they didn’t contain what their labels said, either too much or not enough.

There’s a few things you can do to ensure that the supplement or herbal remedy you purchase is what it says it is.

1. Buy from a reputable retailer. This might be Energy Matters, or another place where you can talk with someone about the products and what quality controls are in place.

2. Look for the cGMP label, which indicates the product was made using ‘current Good Manufacturing Practices.” This is a regulated label, and indicates hygiene and contamination safeguards are in place

3. Don’t buy from Amazon or other online marketplaces like Tiktok or Ebay. There are some manufacturers that sell directly on Amazon, but in general there is no oversight on vendors and you have no way of knowing whether the product you’re buying is authentic, expired, or damaged. If you wouldn’t buy it at a swap meet, don’t buy it on Amazon.

4. Check out Consumer Reports and Consumer Lab, two subscription based websites that conduct independent tests of vitamins and supplements and publish their findings. Consumer Lab created a guide to avoiding counterfeit products. You can also see a list of recalled products on the FDA website.

There’s a LOT more to say about safety and supplements, but these tips will help you choose quality products with accurate labels.

Kirsten Cowan L.Ac
Clinic Manager

PS Questions about supplements we carry at Energy Matters and how we choose our suppliers? Email me at [email protected] or reply to this email.