Question

New dietary supplements do not undergo the same rigorous approval process as new medications. You performed a redox titration to determine the percentage of a component in a dietary supplement and in a medication. When you performed repeated trials, your percentages varied widely for the supplement but were very consistent for the medication. Why do you think this happened?

Answer 1

New medications have more strict process to receive an approval from FDA compared to new dietary supplements which, some doesn't even need FDA's approval to be released in the market. Dietary supplements include in their labels "No approved therapeutic claims" to save them from legal responsibilities. During the titration, the repeated trials for the supplement varies from the medication is maybe because of less stability preservation of the supplement which caused it to degrade.