Dietary Supplement Companies Are Making False Claims, FDA and FTC Warns

The FDA and the FTC sent warning letters to 10 companies falsely claiming to sell dietary supplements that could cure, treat, mitigate, or prevent diabetes. People are strongly encouraged to avoid these products until they have undergone the proper testing.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sent warning letters to 10 companies who were identified to be illegally selling dietary supplements and products. Many of these companies falsely stated on their websites, packaging, and social media that their products could cure, treat, mitigate the effects of, or prevent, diabetes.

"Dietary supplements that make fraudulent claims to treat diabetes are unapproved new drugs that could potentially harm consumers who use these products instead of seeking safe and effective FDA-approved treatments,” said Cara Welch, Ph.D., acting director of the Office of Dietary Supplement Programs in the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition said last week in the statement announcing the action.

“The FDA is committed to protecting U.S. consumers from products and companies that make unlawful claims to treat or prevent diabetes, and we’ll continue to hold companies accountable by alerting the public about products that place consumers at risk,” she said

People with diabetes are urged to avoid these supplements since the FDA does not know if they could cause harm to those using them, whether they are effective or not, what the proper dosage might be, how they might interact with other FDA-approved drugs, and whether they have dangerous side effects.

You can find a full list of the companies, and the supplements they are attempting to sell below:

“If claims sound too good to be true, they probably are,” according to the FDA press release on these warnings. The agency threatened to pursue legal action against the companies if they did not comply with the warning and correct the misleading labeling of the products.

Talk to your healthcare team before starting any new drugs or supplements. If you are currently taking any of these supplements, the FDA encourages you to stop taking them and talk to your healthcare team. If you have experienced any negative side effects from one of these supplements, you are encouraged to report them to MedWatch and the Safety Reporting Portal.

If you are looking for information on FDA approved drugs that have undergone rigorous clinical trials and have been shown to help people with diabetes manage their glucose levels you can check out our Diabetes Medication and Treatments resources.

About the authors

Matthew Garza

Matthew Garza joined the diaTribe Foundation as an associate in 2020 where he worked on diaTribe Learn and the dSeries Executive Innovation Labs. In February 2022, he helped launch dStigmatize.org... Read the full bio »