By Karen Howard, CEO and Executive Director of Organic & Natural Health Association
Successful evaluation of the progress or travails of 2019 requires more than measuring growth in dietary supplements sales, which by that measure alone indicates we had a banner year.
By Stefan Gafner and Mark Blumenthal, American Botanical Council
The news about CBD and hemp extracts dominated 2019, says the American Botanical Council. But issues surrounding the ongoing climate crisis, questions of sustainability, and the ongoing questions of adulteration were important topics as well.
By Steve Mister, President & CEO, Council for Responsible Nutrition
The question of CBDs, and of a mandatory product listing, have dominated a year that for the dietary supplement industry has not been as tumultuous as some.
A call from FDA to consumers to avoid products recalled as part of an enforcement action underscores how difficult it can be to get offending articles off the market.
An interim federal government funding measure does not include language creating a legal pathway for hemp/CBD products, despite advocacy on the part of stakeholders including lawmakers and trade organizations.
The growing obesity epidemic has flummoxed public health officials. Unfortunately, the dietary supplement industry has a checkered history in helping to find solutions.
FDA needs new tools to effectively deal with an expanding supplement marketplace, according to agency official Lowell Schiller. This is especially true when contemplating the flood of CBD products, with many more yet to come.
Athletes using cannabidiol (CBD) products should be prepared for a very real risk they could fail anti-doping tests due to contamination of banned tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), ESSNA has warned.
The Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program is nearing the final stage of its initiative to offer industry a way to keep adulterated materials from turning up in finished goods on the shelf.
A Consumer Reports article detailing what it calls quality failures in turmeric and echinacea supplements has been assailed as being based on false assumptions and arbitrary parameters.
The consumption of plant foods rich in fibre and polyphenols, as well as probiotic supplementation, has been identified as beneficial to restore microbiota balance in the gut and improve sleep, according to researchers.
The 20th annual Oxford International Conference on the Science of Botanicals is now accepting abstract submissions. The event is held March 30th - April 2nd, 2020 in Oxford, Mississippi.
NFL player Brandon Copeland, who had been suspended over a failed drug test, said he plans to file a lawsuit against a company that he claims gave him "contaminated" supplements.
AOAC recognition of two cranberry methods means there is finally consensus on how to identify and quantify the proanthocyanins (PACs) within the botanical, the test’s developer says.
Early data on the Food Safety Modernization Act suggests the new law is working as compliance is improving and recalls have hit a five year low. A newly launched web portal will help track that data.
A cannabidiol (CBD) manufacturer is calling for greater regulatory controls after independent analyses of 31 CBD-based products found varying levels of active ingredients as well as CBD-related labelling issues.
The ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program (BAPP) has published a new Laboratory Guidance Document (LGD) on Saw Palmetto Extract to help industry stakeholders better identify adulterants.
Temptation is a fact of human nature, and is an element in the sports nutrition game as well. Some sports products seem ever to edge toward an ethical line, spurred on by the demand from their consumer constituencies for ‘edgy’ formulations.
The fever pitch of the US-China trade war could turn up the heat on the adulteration issue within the dietary supplement industry. But one prominent expert says the issue must be viewed in a wider context.
Trade body Complementary Medicines Australia (CMA) has reassured the safety of Australian made supplements but cautioned against the online purchase of overseas products, amid ongoing doping saga involving national swimmer Shayna Jack.
Making unsubstantiated disease claims is not only illegal, but as they can prey upon vulnerable populations, they should be considered highly immoral to boot.
Italy’s National Institute of Health reports a number of products currently available on the Italian market that consumers should avoid due to the detection of erectile dysfunction drugs.
Italy’s National Institute of Health concludes that the hepatitis cases linked to the consumption of curcumin-containing supplements was due to “individual susceptibility” or “pre-existing alterations.”
Major ketone ester manufacturers are reporting booming business as pro cycling’s biggest race courses through the French countryside and mountain ranges.
With the increasing globalization of the supply chain, companies will have to look to their own in house capabilities to protect themselves and their consumers from contaminated products. That’s the essence of self regulation in any case.
Industry-wide quality standards for identity and purity will be easier to agree upon than benchmarks for claims substantiation, according to the minutes of a recent stakeholders meeting.
Belgium’s Federal Agency for Food Chain Safety (AFSCA) warns consumers to avoid the same curcumin-based supplement known to Italian authorities after the country also reports cases of acute cholestatic hepatitis.
A new BAPP bulletin has been published that details adulteration in aloe vera ingredients, which are among the most popular in the entire botanicals industry.
A study on professional athletes competing in Olympic sports has found that the players think they know more about supplements and nutrition than they actually do. The researchers called for more education and monitoring by coaches to inform correct supplement...
Cranberry ingredients supplier Fruit d’Or says it is raising the transparency bar by testing its offerings to verify their biological activity, not just to assure that they met spec and are not adulterated.
The recent success of an omega 3 drug trial should help to reinvigorate research into these ingredients’ effects, especially at higher dosages, said one of the field’s prominent experts.
The growing popularity of nootropics and sports nutrition supplements is leading to a boom in unlicensed products being sold online, with Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) recently seizing a raft of items.
The United States Anti Doping Agency has named NSF Certified for Sport as the dietary supplement certification that best meets the needs of athletes, the organization announced recently.
We spoke with Elan Sudberg, CEO of Alkemist Labs and winner of our NutraChampion award to learn about how he stays up to date with the latest science and technology, what keeps him up at night as CEO, and how the industry has changed since he first started.
A joint webinar put on by Global Organization of EPA and DHA Omega 3s (GOED) and the United Natural Products Alliance (UNPA) will help companies understand the intentional adulteration provisions of FSMA.
Early returns from the FDA meeting on CBD regulation give a glimpse of the complexity of the regulatory questions, which might stretch the timeline for a new legal framework to extent beyond which many in the industry would find acceptable.
There’s a finite supply of ingredients in the natural products industry, a challenge that one pharma ‘track and trace’ expert wanted to tackle head-on by starting the blockchain company TagOne.
The main purpose of the Botanical Safety Consortium, a public-private effort bringing together stakeholders in the botanical supplements space, is “advancing the science of botanical safety evaluation, [and is] not involved in regulatory decisions or...
Italy’s National Institute of Health reports a further six new hepatitis incidences linked to the consumption of turmeric-based food supplements bringing the total to ten cases.
In the end, the only thing the dietary supplement industry has to sell is trust. While that trust may be enough for it to weather the stress an intensified trade war may impose, it is no cause for the industry to rest on its laurels.
Italy’s National Institute of Health has received further notifications of two more hepatitis cases linked to a turmeric-based food supplement distributed by a firm already implicated in two similar incidents earlier this month.
Notes from the Dietary Supplements Regulatory Summit
What do housing crises and dietary supplement recalls have in common? They cause a big bust to consumer trust, said Frank Yiannas, deputy commissioner for food policy and response at the Food and Drug Administration.
The uncertain nature of ingredients in some sports supplements and the florid claims on some of these products creates risk for athletes and warfighters, attendees at a recent conference were told.
The Food and Drug Administration announced a new ‘rapid communication tool,’ called the Dietary Ingredient Advisory List. Trade groups and industry experts applauded the effort, but many opined that this step still has much left to be desired in terms...
