According to Dr Ross Walker, practicing cardiologist at Lynfield Cardiology in Sydney, NSW Australia, Australian consumers spend around 3.5 billion dollars every year on supplements which include vitamins, minerals, trace metals, essential oils such as fish, krill and flaxseed along with a variety of herbal products, It is estimated that around 70% of adults in Australia would utilise some type of complementary medicine on a weekly basis.
A recent Four Corners program raised a number of concerns regarding supplementation.
1. Are you getting what it says on the bottle?
2. Are there impurities in some of the preparations that may lead to harm?
3. Does a good lifestyle negate the need for supplementation?
4. Is there any evidence that supplements work in the first place?
5. Can we extrapolate the data from the North American experience to Australia?
The most important question is the last, i.e. can we extrapolate the data from the North American experience to Australia and the answer to this is clearly, no.
The standards and regulations in the US are vastly different to the highly regulated programs in Australia. Basically, North American supplements are made to food standards with much less rigorous testing whereas Australian supplements are made to pharmaceutical grade.
In conclusion, the Four Corners Program was very interesting and well done and did expose problems and concerns for the North American supplement industry but the information is completely irrelevant and misleading when you objectively examine well conducted clinical trials using high quality supplements even from the Northern Hemisphere and there is no doubt that the Australian and New Zealand supplement industry make much better quality, pharmaceutical grade supplements and therefore the Four Corners information is irrelevant to Australia.
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