When supplements say they support ‘brain function’ or ‘heart health’, a large proportion of people believe this refers to a specific disease.
People will believe just about anything – including, it turns out, the vague health statements one finds written on vitamin bottles.
Even if you’re not a vitamin-maxxer yourself, you’ll be aware of those carefully crafted platitudes adorning over-the-counter pill bottles – intentionally ambiguous phrases like “promotes heart health” and “supports brain function”.
While these are deliberately worded so as not to imply that the supplements can actually cure or prevent a disease, lest the vitamin-maker cop a hefty lawsuit, that legislative intent does not always translate.
So found the boffins out at the Duke University Medical Centre in Durham, North Carolina, who asked around 4500 Americans to answer two surveys with questions about labels on vitamin bottles.
The 2239 participants in the first survey were shown a label for a hypothetical fish oil supplement brand called “Nature’s Fish”.
For around half the participants, the label included a claim that the fish oil supplement “supports heart health” or “supports cognitive function”.
One quarter saw a label which contained an actual FDA-approved qualified health claim saying it “may reduce risk of coronary heart disease”, with a fine-print, FDA-mandated disclaimer clarifying that “supportive, but not conclusive research shows that consumption of EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease”.
The remaining quarter of participants saw a label with no health claim at all.
Participants were then asked to rate how likely they felt it was that fish oil would help lower or reduce the risk of a set of disease states, including heart attack, osteoporosis and dementia.
Another 2164 participants were shown a mocked-up label for a fictional supplement called Viadin H.
There were four different labels for Viadin H, each containing a different generic health claim.
These participants were also asked to rate whether they believed it was likely that Viadin H would help lower or reduce a number of disease states.
Across both surveys, participants were more likely to believe that a supplement would work to help prevent or treat the diseases aligned with the message written on the bottle.
“Participants shown supplement labels with statements about heart health and heart function were more likely to report that the supplement could help prevent a heart attack or heart failure, while those shown labels with statements about cognitive support or brain function were more likely to report the supplement prevented dementia or improved cognition in people with dementia,” the research paper read.
According to the authors, this could represent a big old legal problem for supplement pushers.
“Importantly … the regulation regarding label statements does not center around whether the statements actually change behaviors regarding the supplement, but how those statements are interpreted,” the researchers said.
“By law, structure/function label statements are not intended to state that the supplement treats or prevents a disease.
“Given our findings that many individuals who see structure/function statements like heart health, brain health, or cognitive function are inferring disease-specific benefits, these statements should not be permitted under the structure/function category.”
Oops!
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