The domestic market of dietary supplements today shows a number of unsolved problems, such as: competition of these products with drugs, their appointment by doctors as the main treatment, distribution by means of network marketing, often by incompetent people without appropriate education. The insufficient level of awareness of doctors and pharmacists and the lack of mechanisms for proper control over compliance with the legislation necessitates the need to update the requirements for the circulation and distribution of dietary supplements.
The aim of the study was to review the range and accompanying information of dietary supplements presented by the Compendium.onLine online resource in the «Dietary Supplements» section.
Methods of information search, content analysis, data systematization and generalization have been used.
It has been established that the classification distribution of dietary supplements on the informational Internet resource Compendium.onLine contains 17 groups that imitate the ATC classification of drugs. The leaders in terms of the items number of dietary supplements are the domestic companies «Keys to Health» LLC – 157 items, and «Beauty and Health» LLC – 136 items. A total of 508 manufacturers are represented in the analyzed population, including 68 manufacturers of drugs, which offered 673 items of dietary supplements, which accounted for 19.92% of their total. Capsules (36.31%) and tablets (23.50%) were most often represented by the form of release. A total of 50 release forms were presented, 78.28% of the analyzed nomenclature was produced in the form of medicinal forms. The analysis of the recommendations content for the use of dietary supplements showed that only in 33.89% of cases the quantitative indicators of the ingredients content are indicated, and in 38.62% – the medicinal properties are declared with medical diagnoses, which may carry risks of a medical nature when they are used, and therefore requires a strengthening of the system of monitoring compliance with existing legal requirements.
It is advisable to introduce special labeling that emphasizes that dietary supplements is not a drug, and a legislative prohibition on doctors prescribing and recommending dietary supplements.