Chenland Nutritionals, a California-based natural herbal extract supplier, recently announced that it has received New Dietary Ingredient (NDI) approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its joint health supplement, JointAlive, after a two-month review from an FDA committee. Generally, to receive approval for NDIs, a company must include the basis under which it deems a new ingredient to be reasonably expected to be safe, and share with the agency specific information about the product. 
 
The herbal supplement contains the herbs Epimedium brevicornum Maxim (Barrenwort extract), Dioscorea nipponica Makino (wild yam extract), and Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge (red sage extract), three herbs which were selected based upon their prominence in the 2,000-year history of traditional Chinese medicine.
 
JointAlive is marketed as having many benefits, including maintaining healthy joint function, relieving joint pain, supporting flexibility and mobility, and reducing joint inflammation and swelling, based upon prior clinical trials on each respective ingredient, in vitro and in vivo studies the company has completed, and a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial investigating these benefits in a group of 72 healthy elderly men and women which is slated for completion in 2021.
 
A prior clinical trial completed this year investigated JointAlive supplementation on 98 test participants for 60 days, which found that 60% of patients reported joint comfort after 45 days, with significant reductions in both pain and stiffness scores. Other findings include mechanism-related observations that the supplement downregulates core protein factors and inhibits inflammatory biomarkers, according to hematology reports.
 
According to Chenland, nearly 20% of Americans over the age of 45 are suffering from osteoarthritis or related joint diseases, with rates continuing to rise due to age-related comorbidities.