Edit [Clarity] my curiosity focuses more on vitamins and nutrients that doctors confidently prescribe to patients.
In: 8
Medical scientist here:
In very basic terms, a supplement is a thing. A medicine is a thing *that does something.*
Supplements/foods, since they are things, only have to prove that they are the thing they claim to be. USDA has regs for food purity and accuracy. Supplements are a way to add extra (supplemental) thing to your diet, and just has to be what it says it is.
Sketchy supplements are not necessarily what they say they are, and that’s bad/illegal. There is an optional certification that a supplement can have by US Pharmacopeia (USP), which certifies that a supplement is what it claims to be.
Once a supplement claims to do something (treat a disease or provide a benefit), it is in violation of the law unless it has FDA authorization to make that claim. A sketchy way around this is to make the claim and add an asterisk saying that the claim hasn’t been approved by FDA. In any case, if it can prove that it does something, then it’s technically a medicine and should be regulated as such.
Latest Answers