Dietary Supplements

Many adults who were diagnosed with cancer said they use dietary supplements because they believe the supplements will help lower their risk for disease recurrence, according to a recent study.

The FDA and Federal Trade Commission recently warned against dietary supplements that unlawfully claim to cure, treat or prevent diabetes. It was the top story in endocrinology last week.

The FDA and the Federal Trade Commission issued warning letters to 10 companies that market unapproved supplements to treat diabetes and urged consumers not to use the products, which may be harmful.

For patients on hemodialysis, daily receipt of an oral fat-based energy-dense supplement had no clinically significant impact on nutritional status, results of a randomized controlled trial showed.

Most studies on dietary supplements and alternative therapies for weight loss are considered low quality due to small sample size, short follow-up and poor design, according to findings from a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Most herbal and dietary supplements do not promote a clinically significant weight loss in adults, according to data from two systematic reviews presented at the European Congress on Obesity virtual meeting.

In 2017 and 2018, approximately one-third of children and adolescents used a dietary supplement, according to study findings published in MMWR — a similar rate to what has been observed in recent years.

Over-the-counter dietary supplements that claim to improve mental focus and memory contain unapproved drugs, according to research published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.