The modern dietary supplements industry is a multi-billion dollar market. Driven by an industry selling the benefits of a longer, healthier life, and in the context of a developed world with massive health problems, vitamins and minerals are now commonly used to supplement general food intake. While consumers show increasing awareness of the connection between diet and health, the role of the supplements industry is also supported by national governments desperate to reduce the economic burden of their healthcare systems.

Despite its position as a multi-billion dollar industry, the supplements sector could be regarded as being relatively underdeveloped. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that the market has considerable potential given its position at the crossroads of two key consumer trends: the demand for improved health and the desire for more convenient solutions.

Market Economics
The size of the dietary supplements market is particularly challenging to gauge, given the lack of universal definition and acceptance. However, the vitamins and minerals sector, the foundation of the wider supplements market, is more easily quantified.

Products include multivitamin tablets and capsules, single vitamin or mineral tablets and capsules, and multivitamins in liquid preparation form—all products directed for improving or maintaining health and well-being.

Dobson DaVanzo, a Washington D.C.-based economic research firm, completed an economic impact report to quantify the dietary supplement industry’s overall financial impact on the U.S. economy by considering such contributing factors as supply, production, research, direct employment, manufacturing, taxes and the extended financial effects these factors produce.

The report concluded that, “the dietary supplement industry is a significant economic engine that powers businesses in communities in every state across the country.” According to Partnership Capital Growth, the reason for the growth of the supplement industry is that it has gone mainstream. “Ten years ago, it was just the muscle heads and the weekend warriors. Now, it’s the full spectrum with men and especially women.”

Consumer Demand & Future Prospects
At the heart of the improved market performance is increasing awareness on the part of consumers as to how effective dietary supplementation can assist in supporting health. Results from Datamonitor Consumer surveys illustrate the evolving demand for dietary supplements. Not only are more consumers using supplement products to support overall dietary intake, they are more likely to regard supplementation as an effective way to improve health. The established and growing consumer demand for dietary supplements is significant when considering how the market will evolve moving forward. The trend toward personalized health will now drive how consumers use supplements.

Personalized Nutrition Evolution
National healthcare systems are facing a global pandemic of diet-related chronic disease and preventable disorders that include cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes, and myriad inflammatory disorders. Because of its focus on treatment, the pharmaceutical industry has been unable to positively affect this healthcare challenge to any significant extent. Prevention, via health and diet, is necessary to arrest the worrying increase in non-communicable disease.

An etiology-based model is needed to address the underlying molecular basis of an individual’s dysfunction so that therapeutic and preventive strategies can be developed. With the potential to offer personalized formulas and supplement combinations based on genetic testing—or even the individual health questionnaires already in existence—the supplement industry is well positioned to capitalize on this changing landscape.

Personalized nutrition will be one of the key consumer trends over the next decade.

Dietary intake has been recognized to modulate gene and protein expression, and thereby metabolic pathways, homeostatic regulation, and presumably health and disease. In addition, genes also contribute largely to different responses to diet exposure, including inter-individual variations in the occurrence of adverse reactions.

Personalized nutrition could therefore have a key role in minimizing the impact of poor dietary habits. Individual genetic variation [such as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)] is the common consideration for both pharmacogenomics and nutrigenomics. As the dietary supplement market grows, appreciation for the importance of individual or combinations of components in disease prevention and health is also increasing.

The outcomes of advances in genomic technologies have paved the way for greater understanding of the molecular basis for normal and diseased states of life that will ultimately transform medical and nutritional practices. Although the routine practice of genomic medicines or personalized foods is still several years away, healthcare practitioners, including clinical dietitians and nutritionists, need to begin preparing for the future if they want to maximize the quality and outcomes of the services they provide.  

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Dilip Ghosh, PhD, FACN, is director of nutriConnect, based in Sydney, Australia. He is also professionally involved with Soho Flordis International, the University of Western Sydney, Australia, and is an Honorary Ambassador with the Global Harmonization Initiative (GHI). Dr. Ghosh received his PhD in biomedical science from University of Calcutta, India. He has been involved in drug-development (both synthetic and natural) and functional food research and development both in academic and industry domains. Dr. Ghosh has published more than 60 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and he has authored two recent books, “Biotechnology in Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals,” and “Innovation in Healthy and Functional Foods,” under CRC Press. His next book, “Clinical Perspective of Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals” is in press. He can be reached at dilipghosh@nutriconnect.com.au; www.nutriconnect.com.au.