Key Points
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Use of dietary supplements has increased rapidly in recent years and around half of people in North America regularly use supplements.
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A wide variety of supplements are sold. In some cases there is strong evidence supporting their efficacy but in many other cases there is little or no supporting evidence.
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Supplements are marketed by a variety of different methods, including health food stores, multilevel marketing, bulk mail, spam e-mails, Internet websites, and infomercials on TV.
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A large part of marketing practices involves giving unreliable or dishonest information that is not supported by scientific studies.
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There is very little regulation of the marketing of supplements in the United States. However, Canada is now in the process of enforcing reasonably strict regulations.
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Suggestions are given on counseling patients so that they can better evaluate claims made by the sellers of supplements.
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Suggested Further Reading
Temple NJ, Morris DH. Marketing dietary supplements for health and profit, 2nd ed. In: Temple NJ, Wilson T, Jacobs DR, eds. Nutritional Health: Strategies for Disease Prevention. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, 2006, pp. 299–312.
National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF)
Quackwatch http://www.quackwatch.org
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Temple NJ, Morris DH Marketing dietary supplements for health and profit, 2nd ed. In: Temple NJ, Wilson T, Jacobs DR, eds. Nutritional Health: Strategies for Disease Prevention. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, 2006, pp. 299–312.
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Temple, N.J., Anwar, A.R. (2010). Dietary Supplements: Navigating a Minefield. In: Wilson, T., Bray, G., Temple, N., Struble, M. (eds) Nutrition Guide for Physicians. Nutrition and Health. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-431-9_13
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