Vitamins and Natural Supplements

Vitamin Deficiency Diseases

Dietary supplements must comply with the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985. The regulations describe a number of requirements including, but not limited to, labelling and maximum permitted daily doses for several vitamins and minerals.

A dietary supplement is defined as a product taken by mouth containing a dietary ingredient intended to supplement the diet. Dietary ingredients include vitamins, minerals, herbs or other botanicals, and amino acids. In 1994, Congress passed the Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act (DSHEA), an important piece of legislation which provided a regulatory framework for assuring the safety of dietary supplements. DSHEA granted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to establish regulations regarding dietary supplement manufacturing, regulating health claims and labeling of dietary supplements, and creating governmental bodies to encourage research on supplements (Office of Dietary Supplements) and dietary supplement label claims (Commission on Dietary Supplement Labels).