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Obvious fact: nutritional supplements are considered "food" by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Not so obvious fact: what ends up in the nutritional supplements are often UNregulated
by the FDA, because companies can simply declare some ingredient to be "generally regarded as safe" (GRAS) based on some internal studies, and include them without telling the FDA.
Some ingredients are submitted to FDA with full studies and gains full FDA approval, but
most ingredients are not approved by the FDA, and are merely declared to be GRAS by internal studies. A third way, where the GRAS study was submitted to FDA for approval, are often withdrawn, and the ingredient used any way.
GRAS was meant to be used for common ingredients like vegetable oil, vinegar, and so on. But the law, enjoying its 56th birthday recently, is now an anachronism and a loophole for companies to punch through ingredients without formal review by the FDA.
National Resource Defense Council has published a paper where it tracked 56 companies involved in 250+ chemicals declared as GRAS,
as reported by Consumerist. Some of which are... troubling. And you need to be aware if you are drinking or taking any weight-loss or energy formulas.
