Five Supplement Scams To Be Aware Of
Key takeaways
- The FDA does not test all supplements for quality
- Many brands advertise false or exaggerated health claims
- Some brands cheap out on ingredients
- Some brands don't include their ingredients at all!
- Some brands include illegal or dangerous ingredients!
Smart consumers should be aware of five examples of supplement scams:
- Product does not even contain its advertised ingredient (at all)
- Product has additional, undisclosed ingredients
- Product has unsafe ingredients
- Product is contaminated
- Product advertise false medical claims/benefits
1. Product does not contain its advertised ingredient (at all!)
Some manufacturers may not include advertised ingredients to save on cost! Missing ingredients can also occur unintentionally as a result of poor-quality control.17,18 If advertised ingredients are missing, the consumer will not obtain the benefits claimed by the product label or the well-known effects established by any scientific research.
Many manufacturers do not even test their raw materials to ensure they are authentic! Instead, may rely on their suppliers to a document accompanying batches of imported raw materials called a certificate of analysis (COA) – which may be fraudulently produced by foreign suppliers or distributors. International trade is very complex, and many raw materials are handled by multiple intermediaries, accompanied by their respective COAs, before reaching a manufacturer in the U.S. Therefore, the COA document passes around many hands with a lack of transparency creating conditions that are ripe for fraud.17
In 2015, the New York State attorney general’s office “conducted tests on top-selling store brands of herbal supplements at four major retailers and found 80% of the products did not contain any of the herbs on their labels”.19 Moreover, “the tests showed that pills labeled medicinal herbs often contained little more than cheap fillers like powdered rice, asparagus and houseplants, and in some cases substances that could be dangerous to those with allergies.”
In another example, researchers in Canada utilized DNA barcoding analysis on 44 herbal supplements sold in the U.S. and Canada and found less than half (48%) contained any of the herb listed on the label, and near half of the dietary supplements contained substitute ingredients or fillers.20 In a report from India using similar technology, 60% of the natural dietary supplements were adulterated.21
U.S. regulations now stipulate that manufacturers can no longer rely solely on the COA provided by raw material suppliers and must validate raw materials with testing.17 However, this testing can be done by the manufacturer using any testing method and does not need to be outsourced to independent, third-party testing laboratories.
2. Product has additional, undisclosed ingredients
Some fraudsters add undisclosed ingredients to increase profitability. For example, using fillers can be cheaper than using active ingredients. Fillers, such as rice flour, are undoubtedly cheaper than most ingredients that consumers are willing to pay for in a dietary supplement.
Terrifyingly, some fraudulent marketers will include additional ingredients that can cause a high or addiction, causing consumers to come back for more and become involved in a vicious cycle of health deterioration. Undisclosed additives present additional health risks to consumers who may have allergies or may be taking other medications.
The FDA regularly issues public notifications on this type of fraud under the category of "Tainted Products Marketed as Dietary Supplements".22 Scanning a random sample of such FDA public notifications, one can easily find a lengthy list of tainted products, including dietary supplements marketed as vitamins, for weight loss or sexual enhancement and, as we mentioned before, “other” products with a myriad of undisclosed drugs.14
Even the FDA admits they cannot police all supplements, as the website of such public notifications states, “FDA is unable to test and identify all products marketed as dietary supplements on the market that have potentially harmful hidden ingredients”.14
3. Product has unsafe ingredients
This is an alarming issue in the US. A difficult dynamic exists where the FDA must prove an ingredient is unsafe but cannot rely on extensive testing as mandated in the drug industry.
A recent study highlighted about 800 dietary supplements in the market (from 2007 to 2016) that contained unsafe drug ingredients, with 20% having more than one unapproved pharmaceutical ingredient.23 A frightening example of unsafe ingredients in dietary supplements with an international impact comes from a FDA warning about aristolochic acid, a substance that caused permanent kidney damage or urinary tract cancer in several individuals in the United States, United Kingdom, Belgium and France.18,24
4. Product is contaminated
A dietary supplement can be contaminated with any foreign material, including a pharmacologically active ingredient.23 Contamination may be unintentional or intentional.25 Regardless of intent, contamination has serious consequences. For example, a U.S. woman taking an imported botanical dietary supplement once became very ill with symptoms of digoxin intoxication, as her supplement was contaminated with Digitalis lanata as an unlabeled constituent.26
5. Product advertises false medical claims/benefits
It is not uncommon for dietary supplements to advertise outright false health claims. For instance, several dietary supplements are sold that offer miraculous cure to cancer, suggesting they cure or treat all forms of cancer, destroy or shrink cancer cells, or are a better alternative than chemotherapy.27 Such advertising is misleading and can also be dangerous if a consumer treats a serious illness with an ineffective or unsafe product. Overzealous product claims may be met with a warning by the FDA.28