Dietary supplements and related products: A brief summary

We were gratified by the interest expressed in publishing a large number of presentations from the NIDA organized Workshop on “Natureceuticals (Natural Products), Nutraceuticals, Herbal Botanicals, Psychoactives: Drug Discovery and Drug–Drug Interactions”. The number of manuscripts received necessitated two volumes of proceedings. In this brief summary of the second volume, we present an introduction to the roles of organizations such as National Center for Complementary and Alternate Medicine and Office of Dietary Supplements, both at the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration. These agencies are involved in research and regulation of dietary supplements and related products. Next, a brief summary of each of the fifteen articles is provided. The first four articles are related to regulatory and standardization aspects: issues related to botanicals (Khan); USP and dietary supplements (Srinivasan); dietary supplement reference materials (Sander et al.); and proposed cGMPs and the scientific basis behind the proposed regulations by FDA (Melethil). The next three articles relate to the methodologies employed in research: LC/MS for the pharmacokinetic analysis polyphenols from dietary supplements (Barnes et al.); proteomic analysis of grape seed extract (Kim et al.); and a nematode model, C. elegans, in Alzheimer's and ginkgo biloba extract for mechanistic studies; another model, a hepatocyte tissue culture model for drug herbal interaction, is reviewed later and presented by Venkataramanan. The next four chapters are on specific dietary supplements: green tea and the polyphenolic catechins (Zaveri); curcumin (Maheswari et al.); tocotrienols (alpha-tocotrienol, Sen and Roy), gamma-tocotrienol (Sree Kumar et al.). This topic is followed by drug interaction studies: in vitro and in vivo assessment methodologies (Venkataramanan); flavonoid–drug interactions (Morris); MDR and CYP3A4-mediated drug–herb interaction (Pal and Mitra); and evidence-based examination of drug–herb interaction (Chavez and Chavez).