The term “nutraceuticals” has been used to describe a wide variety of non-pharmaceutical compounds in relation to general health, wellness and also disease states.

This is one of the most (mis-) used commercial terms by consumers, manufacturers and even healthcare professionals to refer to many different types of compounds, including (semi-) purified substances from natural sources, plant extracts, dietary supplements, vitamins and minerals, phytonutrients and even (modified) whole foods.

A high level of consumer-pull and market-push has overstretched this area for commercial purposes. This overlapping ground in-between nutrition and clinical pharmacology is clearly a fertile ground for clinical pharmacology and therapeutics, where rigorous science is absolutely vital. With appropriate evidence, this domain can make important contributions to public health, in addition to, not instead of, pharmaceutical therapies.

High-quality human studies are indispensable to obtain credible scientific evidence for nutritional effects on the structure and functioning of the human body in health and disease. Although nutritional clinical studies can have specific characteristics in terms of populations, outcomes, designs, methodologies and interventions, it is clear that human nutrition research should follow the established basic scientific and operational principles for high quality design and execution of human studies.

Dilip Ghosh, PhD, FACN, is director of nutriConnect, based in Sydney, Australia. He can be reached at [email protected]; www.nutriconnect.com.au.

——

The ideas and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect views held by Nutraceuticals World.