Consumers waste £350 a year on rip-off food supplements
Food supplement manufacturers are making false claims about the health benefits of their products.
Producers of some food supplements are making misleading claims about the health benefits of these products, the consumer group Which? has claimed.
Consumers could be wasting up to £354 per year buying supplements which often don’t live up to the exaggerated and sometimes unauthorised health claims printed on the packaging.
Manufacturers, such as Boots and Seven Seas, are also using complicated language and large font sizes to exaggerate the health benefits of their products.
Million-pound industry
This UK food supplement industry is worth £385 million a year and a third of us take supplements on a regular basis.
It’s illegal to include health claims on the packaging of a product if it hasn’t been approved by the EU's European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The exception to this rule is supplements which contain certain probiotic strains and glucosamine but even these supplements must comply with the rules by January 2014.
In the past five years more than 44,000 health claims have been submitted to EFSA for approval but only 248 have been authorised.
Some of the most popular supplements claim to help joint health or to support a healthy digestive and immune system. However, all health claims for these kinds of supplements have been formally rejected by the EU.
Customers could be wasting around £354 every year buying these products. Buying a glucosamine supplement, for example, which has no proven health benefit, can cost up to £1 a day. In comparison a multivitamin with vitamin C, D, manganese and zinc is far cheaper at 3p a day.
Unproven health claims
Three products - Bioglan Probiotic capsules, Bimuno Prebiotic powder and Seven Seas Cardiomax - were highlighted by Which?. They were found to be making unproven health claims such as “helps maintain digestive balance” and “for a healthy heart” on both their websites and packaging.
Six other products were also found to be confusing to customers because of exaggerated and ambiguous claims. These were: Boots Digestion Support Plus, Bioglan Glucosamine Plus Chondroitin and MSM, Seven Seas Jointcare Active, Boots Joint Health Glucosamine Sulphate & Chrondroitin, Vitabiotics Jointace Original and Optima ActivJuice for Joints.
Which? approached the named manufacturers for a response. Bioglan and Seven Seas both said they were redesigning the packaging on certain products and Optima ActivJuice and Seven Seas JointCare Active said their claims refer only to the specific ingredients that they are authorised for.
Bimuno said its claims are substantiated and will resubmit them to EFSA. Boots and Vitabiotics did not respond.
Do you take food supplements? Do you think they are good value for money or a complete rip-off? Let me know in the comment box below.
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Comments
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I have been taking Glucosamine for years. I did stop taking it some time back, but then my knuckle started playing up again, so continued with the supplement. My vet also recommended Glucosamine for our elderly Yorkshire Terrier, so there must be some truth in it. The fact that it works for me is testament enough for me. Our mothers and grandmothers have always taken codliver oil, and this is one supplement that is probably beneficial. Fish oils do have some benefit. As for those probiotic yoghurts, chances are you already have the healthy bacteria needed for a balanced diet, so these only help those who have been on a course of anti-biotics. Some supplements do have benefits, while others are designed to capitalise on the supplement culture that we seem to adopt. As IAmStoneCold has written, much of it is down to a healthy diet. Mind you, considering that commercially grown fruit and veg has only a fraction of what we used to grow some seventy years ago, no wonder we need to supplement vitamins and minerals. Still, I grow my own, and my fruit and veg, especially my tomatoes, tastes wonderful, and probably contains all the vits and mins that they should contain.
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I am sure everyone means well when writing articles like this but there is more to this story than meets the eye. My wife and I have been taking Glucosamine and Chrondroitin for about 12 years. We believe we benefit from it but have been compelled to question it's efficacy after reading other articles such as this one, on occasions we have stopped taking the supplement only to find that the stiffness in our joints returned. About 10 years ago our miniature Dachshund was in a lot of pain and X-rays showed she needed surgery on her back, the Vet suggested we try Glucosamine and Chrondroitin on her which we did. She lived for another 8 years after that, until she was 15 years old and did not have surgery and did not have any pain in the time we were treating her, she broke all the rules, went up and down stairs, jumped on the furniture etc. She had no way of knowing that she was on medication and so the placebo effect argument can't apply here. I have known people who have taken this supplement and it has not worked for them, so it may be that like many things, what works for one person may not work for another but please don't think this substance is of no value, it helps us ad it helped out dog!
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finnol49: FYI while we depend on dietary B12 supply, we synthesize majority of Q10 ourselves and do not solely depend on the dietary intake. healthy heart can be maintained by regular physical activity (walking can do a difference), not smoking, reducing drinking, maintaining healthy body weight and having a balanced diet. reducing stress and having enough sleep also helps. there is no need for Q-10 supplementation.
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06 September 2013