A Free-Reprint Article Written by: Norm Howe
Article Title:
How to Evaluate the Quality of a Dietary Supplement
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Article Description:
So, you've found a Dietary Supplement that exactly fits
your special need. The information on the supplier's
website appears to be consistent with everything that
you've read and heard, and now you're ready to buy. But
there are questions on your mind. "What is the quality of
this product that I'm buying?" you ask. "Can I really
trust this supplier?"
Additional Article Information:
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751 Words; formatted to 65 Characters per Line
Distribution Date and Time: 2010-11-02 12:15:00
Written By: Norm Howe
Copyright: 2010
Contact Email: mailto:info@vcillc.com
Norm Howe's Picture URL:
http://vcillc.com/nhowe%206.13.05.JPG
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How to Evaluate the Quality of a Dietary Supplement
Copyright (c) 2010 Norm Howe
Validation and Compliance Institute
http://www.vcillc.com
So, you've found a Dietary Supplement that exactly fits your
special need. The information on the supplier's website appears
to be consistent with everything that you've read and heard, and
now you're ready to buy.
But there are questions on your mind. "What is the quality of
this product that I'm buying?" you ask. "Can I really trust
this supplier?"
With the globalization of the Dietary Supplement market, these
are valid questions. When you look at the retailer's website, or
even the label on the bottle, you can't tell anything about the
product. You can't tell who actually made it. You can't tell
where it was made. And you can't tell whether the product is a
quality product, or not.
What's a consumer to do? I can give you a few answers, but you
don't have an easy task ahead of you. Here's why.
First you need to understand the structure of the Dietary
Supplement industry. Hold on because this is a little
complicated.
There are many levels in the Dietary Supplement supply chain.
Some of the companies may function in more than one level in the
supply chain but most don't. They only do one part of the
process. For instance, the company that you buy your Dietary
Supplement from will usually be only a distributor. Here is a
list of those levels:
Dietary Ingredient Manufacturers. These are the companies that
manufacture the individual ingredients that you see listed on the
labels of the Dietary Supplements that you buy. Some examples
would be St. John's Wort, Echanacea, or Glucosamine. These
products are sourced from all over the globe.
Dietary Supplement Manufacturers. These companies mix Dietary
Ingredients together.
Tabletters and encapsulators. These companies convert the mixed
Dietary Supplement into tablets or capsules.
Packagers. These companies package the tablets, capsules,
powders, or liquid Dietary Supplements and apply labels.
Distributors. These are the companies that actually market the
finished Dietary Supplement to consumers.
Herein lies your first big problem. The companies that perform
these functions are not visible to you. The retailer that you buy
your Dietary Supplement from may perform one or more of these
functions. However, the chances are that your retailer does not
do all of it. In fact there's a good chance that your retailer
is only a distributor and contracts out ALL of the manufacturing
operations.
Any Dietary Supplement that is offered for sale in the United
States must comply with regulations of the US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA). The Dietary Supplements that we buy are the
safest in the world.
The FDA has enacted new regulations to improve the quality of
Dietary Supplement manufacturing and FDA inspects all of the
levels in the supply chain. However, those new regulations have
only recently gone into effect and FDA has not inspected all the
suppliers under the new regulations.
FDA does not give companies a certification, nor do they approve
them after they have been inspected. So there is no stamp of
approval from FDA that you could find on your retailer's website
or in their literature that would define them as "FDA
approved".
On the other hand, if FDA inspects a facility and finds problems,
it can issue a Warning Letter. The Warning Letter will be
published on FDA's website, www.fda.gov. The link is visible on
the lower right side of the home page. If you want to investigate
a company, go to the Warning Letter page and search for the
company.
Unfortunately the retailer is unlikely to be the manufacturer of
the dietary supplement. But if you find that your supplier has a
recent Warning Letter, find someone else to buy your dietary
supplements from.
There are non-governmental organizations that inspect and certify
Dietary Supplement manufacturers. These organizations will then
allow the Dietary Supplement manufacturer to display their
certificate or logo. The certificate will usually say something
like "GMP Certified". GMP stands for Good Manufacturing
Practices. These organizations inspect Dietary Supplement
manufacturers to make sure that they follow Good Manufacturing
Practices and to ensure that the manufacturer has GMP training
(http://vcillc.com/compliance_services.html) in place for all
of their employees.
The bottom line is that if you want an extra measure of safety
when you look for a Dietary Supplement supplier, look for a GMP
certification logo on the website or on the label of the product
you buy. But don't stop there. Go to the website of the
certifying organization and check to make sure that the Dietary
Supplement supplier is listed as a certified company.
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Norm Howe, Senior Partner at Validation and Compliance Institute,
consultants for the pharmaceutical and medical device industries.
He got his BS at UC, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in chemistry at UCLA.
He has held many management positions in FDA regulated industries,
most at BASF. http://www.vcillc.com/
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