The Dietary Supplement Education Alliance: A Great Resource for Info on Nutritional Supplements

The Dietary Supplement Education Alliance is part of an overall foundation known as the Dietary Supplement Information Bureau. This foundation was formed in 2001 to help consumers responsibly use nutritional supplements.

This Alliance is part of a non-profit organization that works to educate consumers on the many different supplements such as vitamins, herbs, minerals and specialized supplements.

The mission of the Dietary Supplement Education Alliance is encased in their commitment to ensuring that all consumers, health care providers, the media and all policymakers have all of the facts concerning dietary nutritional supplements in order to make informed decisions.

There are many actions and goals of the DSIB, one of which is to ensure that the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act is met by insuring that all people are informed on how to use supplements properly.

One way they are doing this is through the preparation and oversight of the media and in using the media to get the nutritional information to the public.

The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act

The is a direct result of the formation of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) passed by Congress in 1994.

Up to this point, there was little or no oversight in the manufacturing and processing of dietary supplements. This new and more comprehensive law changed the way that the Federal Government was involved in regulating supplements.

This law gives the federal government more input into the safety of dietary and nutritional supplements and insures the accuracy of any claims made by these supplements.

This newly enacted law, at the time, brought about many questions on how far the government was going to intervene in the manufacturing and distribution of dietary supplements. Some questions still remain and are being worked out in an on-going evolution of the department.

The first, and possibly, main part of their duty was in defining what compounds or supplements would fall under their realm of jurisdiction. Basically, what constitutes a dietary supplement? The Dietary Supplement Education Alliance follows their definition when educating consumers. Under their guidelines, a dietary supplement must:

Contain at least one or more of these ingredients: vitamin, mineral, herb, amino acid, botanical or a dietary substance that is ingested with the intent to supplement the diet.

It must be ingestible in the form of a capsule, tablet pill or liquid; the exception being that it does not claim to be used as food in part or as a whole meal replacement.

Finally, it must be labeled as a dietary supplement and that label must be visible to consumers.

If a supplement meets these conditions then it is considered a dietary supplement and falls under the regulation of the Dietary Supplement Education Alliance. While their regulations are not as stringent as those of pharmaceuticals, they do offer some benefit to consumer’s terms of safety.

The Dietary Consumer Education Alliance continues to educate the public on new dietary supplements as they are discovered and marketed for use. They are the first source to turn to when in doubt concerning a supplement.