Office of Dietary Supplements

Office of Dietary Supplements (National Institutes of Health). Dietary Supplements Background Information ... 

Section 13 of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 created an Office of Dietary Supplements as part of the National Institutes of Health. The office was given two primary responsibilities (1) to explore more fully the potential role of dietary supplements as a significant part of the efforts of the United States to improve health care and (2) to promote scientific study of the benefits of dietary supplements in maintaining health and preventing chronic disease and other health-related conditions. 

Responds as the expert resource for CDER to issues and meeting requests from the Office of the Commissioner and interfaces on common botanical issues and fosters communication with the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and the Office of Dietary Supplements at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). 

United States Congress passes Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, which expressly defines a dietary supplement as a vitamin, a mineral, an herb or other botanical, an amino acid, or any other dietary substance. This law prohibits claims that herbs can treat diseases or disorders, but it allows more general health claims about the effect of herbs on the structure or function of the body or about the well-being they induce. Under this law, the FDA bears the burden of having to prove an herbal is unsafe before restricting its use. This law also establishes the Office of Dietary Supplements within the National Institutes of Health to promote and compile research on dietary supplements. 

Zinc occurs naturally in some foods. According to the Office of Dietary Supplements of the National Institutes of Health Oysters contain more zinc per serving [76.7 mg in 6 medium oysters] than any other food, but red meat and poultry provide the majority of zinc in the American diet. Other good food sources [of zinc] include beans, nuts, certain types of seafood (such as crab and lobster), whole grains, fortified breakfast cereals, and dairy products. ... 

Office of Dietary Supplements, http //ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/ DietarySupplements.asp. 

Stem, M. NIH Announces Two Additional Centers for Dietary Supplement Research. Office of Dietary Supplements National Institutes of Health, 2000, Sep. 20, http //www.nih.gOv/news/pr/sep2000/ods-20.htm (accessed January 2001). 

ODS 2004. Promoting Quality Science in Dietary Supplement Research, Education and Communication A Strategic Plan for the Office of Dietary Supplements 2004-2009 . Office of Dietary Supplements, NIH. 

Milot, B. 2004. RE The Dietary Supplements Methods and Reference Materials Program of the Office of Dietary Supplements . American Botanical Council, Herbclip, Austin, TX. 

The modern media hype on nutritional additives has put their use very much into the general public domain. In 1995 the NIH set up an Office of Dietary Supplements and the first Director, Dr. Bernadette Marriott, on the occasion of launching a new journal, Antioxidants and Redox Signaling , wrote in the Introduction For the public, antioxidants embody a solution to most health problems and to living a long life without looking old . 

Clinical Nutrition Service, Office of Dietary Supplements, National Institutes of Health, Washington, DC. (http //ODS.nih.gov/factsheets/magnesium.asp) Cowan J. A., Ed. (1995). The Biological Chemistry of Magnesium. John Wiley and Sons, New York. 

Dietary Supplement Fact Sheets. Bethesda, MD U.S. National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements. http //ods.od.nih.gov/Health Information/Information About Individual Dietary Supplements.aspx (accessed on March 13, 2006). 

This book is dedicated to the memory of Mary Frances Picciano, Ph.D., former Senior Nutrition Research Scientist at the Office of Dietary Supplements, National Institutes of Health. Her interest, foresight, and willingness to have the Office of Dietary Supplements support a partnership with the American Herbal Products Association and the University of Massachusetts made this work possible. 

Appreciation is also due to Joseph Betz, Ph.D. and the late Mary Frances Picciano, Ph.D. of the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Betz shared his ideas on the makeup of the Expert Advisory Council and on the importance of addressing the potential for an herb to modify the effect of a drug taken concomitantly, commonly referred to as an herb-drug interaction (a topic that was outside of the scope of the first edition). Dr. Picciano facilitated ODS s significant financial support of the revision process and ensured that the planned revision met high academic and scientific standards. 

Widi the above background in mind, NIGMS organized a meeting held on Ihe NIH canq)us in Bethesda, Maryland, June 28-29, 2000. The meeting was co-sponsored by the Center for Scientific Review, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), and die Office of Dietary Supplements, Office of the Director, NIH. 

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