FDA supplement brochure
This article was originally published in The Tan Sheet
Executive Summary
A joint CFSAN/ODS brochure titled "What Dietary Supplements Are You Taking? Does Your Health Care Provider Know? It Matters, and Here's Why" offers tools to guide patients conversations about dietary supplements with their healthcare providers. A Nutrition Assessment checklist first helps patients evaluate whether supplement use is appropriate based on their diets, while a supplement diary sets up a scheme to record all the supplements a patient takes. A medication diary encourages patients to list all current Rx and OTC medications. The brochure text twice reminds readers to "not substitute a dietary supplement for a prescription medicine or therapy," and that "some supplements can have unwanted effects before, during and after surgery." The agency had 50,000 copies of the brochure printed, and has distributed roughly 10,000 to date...