BACKGROUND After passage of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, herbs and other supplements were allowed to be sold to the public without Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval or premarket evaluation. Data suggest that many people are unaware of this lack of governmental oversight and may rely on their physicians for education in this arena. This study was designed to evaluat...

OBJECTIVES To describe the characteristics of dietary supplement users in a large cohort of women and test the hypothesis that supplement users would be more likely to have a healthier lifestyle than non-users. DESIGN Comparison of nutrient intakes from food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) data for 8409 supplement users and 5413 non-users. Use of logistic regression modelling to determine predi...

OBJECTIVE To describe dietary supplement use among US children. DESIGN Analysis of nationally representative data from the 1999-2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). SETTING Home interviews and a mobile examination center. PARTICIPANTS Children from birth through 18 years who participated in NHANES (N=10,136). MAIN EXPOSURE Frequency of use of any dietary suppl...

pon successful completion of this article, pharmacists should be able to: 1. Describe the common uses and proposed mechanisms of action of 19 dietary supplements. 2. Describe adverse effects associated with the use of dietary supplements. 3. Describe the mechanisms of drug interactions involving a given dietary supplement. 4. Evaluate resources for pharmacists, physicians, and consumers for die...

PURPOSE To assess the effects of a soy dietary supplement on the main biomarkers of cardiovascular health in postmenopausal women compared with the effects of low-dose hormone therapy (HT) and placebo. METHODS Double-blind, randomized and controlled intention-to-treat trial. Sixty healthy postmenopausal women, aged 40-60 years, 4.1 years mean time since menopause were recruited and randomly a...

BACKGROUND Dietary supplement use is increasing despite lack of evidence of benefits, or evidence of harm. Press releases issued by the supplements industry might contribute to this situation by using 'spin' (strategies to hype or denigrate findings) to distort the results of clinical studies. We assessed press releases issued in response to publication of clinical studies on dietary supplement...

RATIONALE Nutritional supplements are preparations intended to supplement the diet and provide nutrients. They include vitamins, minerals, fiber, fatty acids, or amino acids, that may be missing or may not be consumed in sufficient quantities in a person's diet. Many health professionals including dietitians, physicians and pharmacists are supplement users. OBJECTIVES The objectives of the pr...

BACKGROUND The association between dietary vitamin C intake and breast cancer survival is inconsistent and few studies have specifically examined vitamin C supplement use among women with breast cancer. The purpose of this study was to summarise results from prospective studies on the association between vitamin C supplement use and dietary vitamin C intake and breast cancer-specific mortality ...

BACKGROUND Genetic susceptibility testing for Alzheimer disease (AD) with APOE genotype disclosure is not recommended for clinical use but is available through direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing companies. Little is known about whether APOE genotype disclosure would actually prompt changes in nutrition behaviors among at-risk individuals. OBJECTIVE We studied the effect of APOE genotype...

Health claims in the United States have been a topic of intense controversy since the mid-1980s. Three categories of claims can currently be used on food and dietary supplement labels in the United States: 1) health claims, 2) nutrient content claims, and 3) structure/function claims. Structure/function claims were authorized under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act and describe th...