The US dietary supplement market size was valued at $50.91 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 5.7% from 2023 to 2030. Surveys across the nation show that Americans spend the most on supplements, from protein shakes to vitamins and minerals, with an average lifetime spend of $40.287.
North America is the global frontrunner in Vitamins and Dietary Supplements with the US the single largest country contributing 27% of global sales in 2018. This statistic indicates the percentage of surveyed US adults that take dietary supplements from 2002 to 2021. The survey was conducted yearly. In 2021, a record high of 80% of the adult population in the United States took dietary supplements.
The number one vitamin in the world in Vitamin D.
The top five healthy supplements recommended for overall health include,
- Multivitamin
- Omega-3 fatty acids
- Probiotics
- Vitamin D
- Calcium
The average profit margin for the supplement industry is 30-50% per item. The number one company manufacturing and selling supplements in the world is Nutrilite. Nutrilite is a subsidiary of Amway. Currently, the have over 350 products and manufacture in California and Michigan. They also have plants in China and India with organic farms in Brazil and Mexico.
Unlike drugs products that must be proven safe and effective for their intended use before marketing, there are no current provisions in the law for the FDA to approve dietary supplements for safety of effectiveness.
Online vitamins and supplement sales in the US in 2022 was $22.7 billion. This industry in the US has grown 11.3% per year on average between 2017 and 2022. The growth rate for 2023 was 4.8% alone.
As consumers became increasingly concerned about contracting the coronavirus, sales of supplements that were said to boost the immune system skyrocketed and the revenue growth has not stopped.
The purpose of this article is to exemplify the rapid growth of this market and to demonstrate the lack of oversight by any regulatory body such as the FDA. This is especially worrisome as some ,if not most ,of the ingredients are farmed in foreign countries.
As a practitioner with over four decades of experience, I have experienced my share of difficult diagnostic dilemmas.
One case was extremely difficult, but I was lucky enough to find the answer and solve the problem. This was the case of a middle-aged women who had the diagnosis of adult-onset diabetes mellitus. She had the disease for about five years and really exemplified what you want your patients to accomplished with diabetes. She lost weight, exercised daily and followed a proper diet. She was on an oral agent and her lab results were always excellent. One visit she presented feeling different. She complained of excessive hunger, thirst and urination. A fingerstick in my office, demonstrated very elevated glucose. A laboratory analysis revealed a hemoglobin A1C to be high revealing her sugar was out of control for a period of time. She had not changed her diet and her lifestyle of daily exercise had not changed. Her examination was essentially normal. I decided to look for an occult infection or malignancy of some sort. The testing came up normal. Even a dental exam searching for an abscess was normal.
I had asked her to keep a dietary record of everything she put in her mouth, and she presented the dairy to me during our next visit. The diet, as it always was in the past, was impeccable for a diabetic, but I noticed a supplement that was not mentioned in the past. She stated her knees were bothering her from exercise, so she got the supplement from the internet and started taking it months ago. She stated her knees felt great on the supplement.
This was the answer to the new onset of her uncontrolled diabetes as the supplement contained cortisone causing her sugar to spike and ultimately go out of control.
This was stopped and her diabetes came back into tight control as before.
In a recent article in Medscape dated Monday, November 6,2023, the author Lucy Hicks wrote “FDA Warns of Hidden Ingredients in Arthritis, Pain Products”. The article states certain products marketed for arthritis and pain management could contain hidden ingredients that could be harmful to consumers according to an FDA warning.
“These products may cause potentially serious side effects and may interact with medications or dietary supplements a consumer is taking. It is clear from the results of our decade of testing that retailers and distributors, including online marketplaces, do not effectively prevent these types of potentially harmful products from being sold to consumers”, the FDA stated.
The FDA testing is made only after a complaint is filed about illegal or unsafe ingredients in a product. The supplements otherwise can be sold without FDA regulation or intervention.
From 2013 to 2023, the FDA identified 22 arthritis and pain products with active ingredients not disclosed on the label. Candy Tsourounis, PharmD, a professor in the department of clinical pharmacy at the University of California, said the most common hidden ingredients were prescription only corticosteroids, NSAIDS and muscle relaxers.
Some products tested contained diclofenac (NSAID) another had diclofenac and corticosteroids and a third had diclofenac, steroid and a muscle relaxer.
Certain products were also found to contain antihistamines. The ingredients were not disclosed on the label in any of the cases found.
This author is not condemning the vitamin and supplement industry in its entirety. This article is only to show the enormity of the people, taking supplements and the size of the industry where there is currently no oversight.
Millions and millions of Americans suffer from osteoarthritis of the knees, hips, shoulders and back. If we cannot trust the supplement industry, if our physicians don’t have a cure and their medicines prescribed have significant and long-lasting side effects, if some of the currently approved drugs, given in millions of doses daily, actually increase the incidence of arthritis, what is the solution?
It is estimated that patients with osteoarthritis of the knees have lost 50% or greater the amount of hyaluronic acid in the joint. Hyaluronic acid provides cushioning and lubrication to the surface of the joint. With diminished doses, the joint is exposed to friction causing the loss of cartilage which is the hallmark for osteoarthritis. Supplementation with hyaluronic acid is a significant way to treat this disease.
Platelet rich plasma is an autologous blood concentrate rich in cytokines, growth factors and bioactive proteins that has been used in all fields of medicine to revive and restore damaged tissues. As an autologous blood product, there are few, if any side effects with documented successful applications worldwide.
Regenerative tissue products such as exosomes have revolutionized the regenerative medical field. The sole use of these products or in combination with hyaluronic acid or platelet rich plasma is rapidly becoming the state of the art for repair of tissue damage and as a treatment for some chronic conditions.
Juventix Regenerative Medical is an industry leader in the regenerative medical field. Our Platelet Rich Plasma Kits are FDA cleared and designed for safety, sterility and effectiveness. Our kits are scientifically manufactured to provide a platelet concentrate, devoid of red blood cells with a minimum number of leukocytes, critical to the regenerative process.
Juventix Regenerative Medical offers a patent pending LED Activator to activate the platelets and begin the regenerative process. This activation is a critical step in the release of cytokines, growth factors and bioactive proteins from the alpha granules on the platelets and is accomplished with LED light. This negates the use of chemical additives such as Calcium Chloride, Thrombin or Collagen.
Juventix Regenerative Medical supplies a Bio-Incubator that transforms the Platelet Rich Plasma into an Injectable Platelet Rich Fibrin. The Platelet Rich Fibrin commonly called the “second generation of platelet products” has different cytokines and growth factors than the original PRP. These different cytokines provide an anti-inflammatory environment and can be used confidently in inflammatory conditions such as osteoarthritis.
Juventix Regenerative Medical has many products and services for the regenerative professional. These products include tissue based therapeutic products such as exosomes offered through our collaboration with Evolutionary Biologics.
Rethink the use of those supplements, there are proven alternatives. Have a discussion with your medical professional.
