Nutraceuticals, a Call for Quality Control of Delivery Systems

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Abstract
The nutraceutical revolution which has become an integral part of the medical discovery process, marked the entry of nutraceuticals into the mainstream of clinical practice and scientific medical research. This has given rise to an increasingly urgent need to rationalize the scientific development, standardization, commercial availability and communications of these products to a dual audience of consumers and physicians. Standardization is often based on the concentration of a major active constituent and ensures consistency in identification of the active ingredient, consistency in strength and content in the delivery system and consistency in dosing and thus, optimization of intended therapy. Critical quality control measures ensure that these standards are met. Nutraceuticals are not regulated by the existing legislation, i.e., the Nutrition Labeling Health and Education Act of 1990 (NLEA) and the Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA). The objective of this report is to highlight how the lack of standardization influences the quality of commercial nutraceutical dosage forms. The dosage form evaluation focused on products containing the potential antiarthritic nutraceuticals chondroitin sulfate and glucosamine. The dosage form evaluation carried out in terms of content uniformity illustrated that not all supplements containing glucosamine or chondroi-tin sulfate or both, contain the stated amount which appears on the label. Research and regulation focusing on quality control standards are required so as to ensure consistency, efficacy and safety of nutraceuticals.