If you have an in-office or online dispensary, it is no question that you want your patients to purchase their dietary supplements from you. After all, you know that the products you recommend are unrivaled for quality and will give your patients more benefit over whatever “comparable” products they might find in a big store or online.
But your patients may be swayed by different priorities. They may search retail stores or the internet to find similar products at lower prices. So if you want your patients to return to you to refill their supplement purchases, you need them to be just as convinced as you are about the importance of quality, and you need to understand their desire for convenience.
Below is a list of five talking points about dietary supplement quality that you can share with your patients. The goal is to ensure they understand the importance of quality, and will be fully committed to purchasing their products from you—and only you. Using a VIrtual Dispensary® solution like Wellevate® by Emerson Ecologics helps provide the convenience and confidence your patients need.
1. FDA doesn’t test supplements for safety or efficacy before they’re marketed.
While it is untrue that supplements are not regulated in the U.S., it is important to understand how supplements are regulated. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates dietary supplements, but only within the limitations established by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA). More specifically, FDA largely relies on post-market rather than pre-market enforcement mechanisms.
Instead of general pre-market safety testing, FDA has a system in which consumers, practitioners, researchers, or others can report serious adverse events for products currently on the market. These serious adverse events can be filed through the “safety reporting portal” on FDA’s website. This leaves it up to consumers to be the watchdogs.
Instead of general pre-market efficacy testing, FDA allows companies to claim that products support physiologic structures or functions. But a problem with these claims is that they may not be appropriately substantiated – that is, statements might be based on research that was conducted on the same ingredient but in a different form (e.g., folic acid vs methylfolate), a different delivery system (e.g., powdered vs. emulsified), or a different potency (e.g., 100 mg per day vs. 20 mg per day).
The fact that FDA doesn’t evaluate all products for safety or efficacy means that the onus largely lies on the shoulders of individual manufacturers. And what that means for your patients is that they need a way to know which companies they can trust. This is where the next talking point comes into play.
2. Testing for active ingredients, potency, and contaminants is not mandatory. One way dietary supplement companies can assure consumers that their products are safe and effective is to do in-house or third-party testing of their raw materials and final products.
There are three main things supplements should be tested for: the presence and identity of active ingredients, the potency of active ingredients, and the absence of contaminants. Nobody wants to take a supplement that’s ineffective or contains heavy metals, pesticides, or pathogenic bacteria, right?
The important point here is that testing of raw materials or final products isn’t mandatory. The best way to know if products have been tested is either by looking for a certification seal on the label or talking with the manufacturer. Examples of third-party certifications include the USP Verified Mark, Consumer Labs, UL, and the International Fish Oil Standards (IFOS).The Emerson Quality Program (EQP)® Silver and Gold Partners are also available exclusively to your patients through Wellevate.
3. There are no set standards for product formulations. It can be tempting for manufacturers to choose the cheapest raw ingredients. For example, pyridoxine hydrochloride is the most economical form of vitamin B6. However, pyridoxine-5-phosphate is the most biologically active form and may provide the greatest benefit for some patients.
It can also be tempting for manufacturers to skimp on the potency of their ingredients, or create a formula with only a tiny amount of certain expensive ingredients. A manufacturer may say a product contains saffron, for example, but include only a minuscule amount because of the cost of that ingredient.
The highest-quality products are formulated by teams of clinicians or researchers based on scientific evidence. You can learn how companies formulate their products by speaking with their representatives. Emerson Ecologics does this for you as part of the Emerson Quality Program, so by adding our EQP® brands to your Wellevate online dispensary it helps ensure that you are offering efficacious products formulated based on scientific evidence.
4. The FDA doesn’t certify supplement manufacturing facilities. Instead, FDA asks companies to follow current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMPs), meaning their facilities should be kept clean and climate-controlled, with quality-control procedures in place. FDA enforces this with periodic site visits to registered facilities.
But there is no official FDA certification or product seal that lets consumers know if a facility is following cGMP guidelines. Some companies opt for seals from third-party certifiers like NSF International or the Natural Products Association to demonstrate their good manufacturing practices. The Emerson Ecologics Quality team helps ensure that all dietary supplement brands distributed through Emerson Ecologics meet or exceed cGMP standards. When you use Wellevate as your online dispensary, you know the products you purchase are manufactured according to these strict guidelines.
5. Storage and distribution affect product quality. The final point to make to patients is that the way a product is handled after it’s formulated, manufactured, and packaged also affects quality. For instance, many dietary supplements are sensitive to heat or light. They need to be stored and transported under climate control, and their expiration dates need to be closely watched.
What this means to your patients is that even if they purchase the exact product you recommend, it may have been handled inappropriately if it doesn’t come from your dispensary or a reliable manufacturer or distributor.
The bottom line is that your patients want to know that the products they’re taking are safe, effective, and worth the price. The best way for them to be sure of that is to purchase products from trusted manufacturers and distributors. You are in a unique position to convince them of that through a candid and direct chat about quality. And Wellevate is here to make it easy for you and your patients to be confident in the supplements they are purchasing!