Pieter Cohen Research Is Impacting How We View Dietary Supplement Safety
PieterCohen is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a primary care physician at the Cambridge Health Alliance. PieterCohen, MD, explains dietarysupplements & regulations. But infectious disease doctors, researchers, and supplement experts say there isn’t much evidence that these products actually help. What does the science say? Supplements claiming to support immunity often contain vitamins and minerals necessary for the immune system. By law, dietarysupplements whose ingredients were not sold in the United States before 1994 require demonstration of a “reasonable expectation of safety” — a currently unenforced requirement. Will the FDA's proposed new guidance in this area be adequate? "A lot of people are spending unnecessary sums for things that in most cases will do nothing," says Dr. PieterCohen, a dietarysupplementsafetyresearcher and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. The SupplementResearch Program, led by PieterCohen, MD , has become the leading voice on supplementsafety in the United States. Over the past 15 years, Dr. Cohen has investigated the novel, experimental and surprising ingredients in dietarysupplements. PieterCohen at his home in Brookline, Mass. Kayana Szymczak for STAT. T he dietarysupplements had ominous names, like Black Widow and Yellow Scorpion.
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