Food Supplements: moving from the ‘Wild West’ towards quality and compliance
When choosing dietary supplements and products, it is important to know they have not been contaminated with unsafe or banned substances. Global quality assurance and third-party supplement certification programmes, such as those provided by LGC’s Informed Choice brand, [28] are designed to minimise the risks of dietary supplement products being inadvertently contaminated with prohibited and potentially harmful substances. Certification by Informed Choice is the result of successful participation in a voluntary, third-party, supplement testing programme by companies who wish to become a certified supplement brand, [29] register some (or all) of their products, and carry the Informed mark on them. Their products are then tested by LGC’s world- class anti-doping laboratory which screens against more than 250 substances banned in sport, using ISO/IEC 17025 accredited methods. This means that potential buyers who see the Informed logo or on-pack descriptor on a product’s packaging can be assured that it has undergone rigorous checks and testing, and is safer to use. While no laboratory’s analysis will encompass all of the analytes listed in The World Anti-Doping Agency’s prohibited list, LGC is constantly developing new technologies and using its relationships with international anti-doping organizations [30] in order to provide appropriate coverage for new and emerging threats. Enhancing safety and compliance using third party certification
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