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RE: Food Supplements #4: Soy isoflavones - A natural saviour for menopausal women?
I really appreciate your work to analyze and educate people regarding the "natural" supplements or supplements in general. I was always a little reserved about their claims, especially since they get to avoid doing any research.
In Romania you can basically say just almost anything on National Television about a supplement since nobody will ever fine you for this. I personally reported a lot of their claims but I never received any response for the National Audiovisual Council (the regulators).
50% of the people are taking energy supplements when there is no need usually. Also, most of the commercials on the TV (not that I own one) are related to supplements. Trust is very high in these companies and their products.
That's exactly the main problem in my opinion. If you want to develop a drug, the research requirements are crazy. But this is good for the safety. If you want to produce a supplement, there seem to be hardly any requirements at all.
This probably varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction?
That might indeed vary from country to country, yes, but from what I know, the requirements are quite lax all around the globe.
In the EU, food supplements share the same regulations as regular food. A problem arises when there's no regulation for a compound in regular food - even if it's just because there is no realistic szenario where concentrations can be reached that are high enough for the compound to exert toxic effects. So even if that might happen with supplementation, the compound remains unregulated. That's exactly the case for isoflavones. So even as soy isoflavones are more or less marketed as a kind of natural drug, the are regulated (or rather not regulated) as a food compound.
In the US, consumer protection is usually weaker than in the EU, so I wouldn't expect much regulations on supplements either.