On June 2, 2022, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a new initiative, Supplement Your Knowledge. The goal of the initiative is to “educate, inform, and broaden consumer, educator and healthcare professional understanding of dietary supplements.” The resources inside Supplement Your Knowledge include reliable information about the potential benefits and risks associated with dietary supplements, including vitamins, minerals, and herbs.
FDA started this initiative because millions of Americans take dietary supplements daily and while supplements can help consumers “meet their daily requirements of essential nutrients or help improve or maintain their overall health,” they can also come with health risks that consumers may not be aware of.
Supplement Your Knowledge Materials
For consumers, Supplement Your Knowledge includes videos and fact sheets with information about dietary supplements, including information on how they are regulated, as well as potential benefits and risks of supplements. The FDA hopes that these materials will serve as a helpful resource for patients when talking to their physician, nurse, or other healthcare professional before taking a dietary supplement.
For healthcare professionals, the FDA joined forces with the American Medical Association (AMA) to create a continuing medical education (CME) program for physicians and other healthcare professionals understand how dietary supplements are regulated, provide information for patients regarding their use, and recognize and report adverse events to the FDA. The free CME includes three videos and companion education materials. Physicians who complete the CME course can earn 0.50 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit on the AMA Ed Hub.
The initiative also includes information for educators, as the FDA believes that teenagers can be targets for misunderstanding what dietary supplements are, as well as the potential adverse effects dietary supplements can have on their bodies. To that end, the FDA created high school curriculum to help students better understand how to evaluate the accuracy and credibility of information they may see about dietary supplements. Science and Our Food Supply: Examining Dietary Supplements (2021 Edition) is in alignment with current national education standards and can be customized to science, health, and similar classes.
FDA Statement
In the launch announcement, FDA noted that Supplement Your Knowledge is just part of the agency’s “plan of action to arm individuals with helpful information to make informed decisions about the use of dietary supplements.”
“Dietary supplements can be valuable to your health but taking some supplements can also involve health risks. It’s important for consumers to have a comprehensive understanding about dietary supplements as well as the ability to identify and safely use supplements that are beneficial to their health,” said Douglas Stearn, Deputy Director for Regulatory Affairs in the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. “These Supplement Your Knowledge resources will help provide consumers and healthcare professionals with facts to make informed decisions when determining if they want to use or recommend dietary supplements.”