About Dietary Supplements

"There’s no shortage of information about (dietary) supplements," writes Sally Squire in a sidebar to her article, "High Irony: The New Supplement Labels Are Short on Facts," in the Health section of The Washington Post on March 7. The challenge, she says, is finding accurate, up-to-date information.

As resources, Squire lists several highly respected commercial, non-profit, and government websites. Here are the three government sites:

• U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Information Center
  "Here you can check out the vitamins and minerals in your food or download a wealth of information about vitamins, minerals and botanicals from USDA and other governmental and nongovernmental sources," Squire says.

• National Library of Medicine
  Fact sheets on supplements.

• The Office of Dietary Supplements of the National Institutes of Health
  Fact sheets on supplements — magnesium, selenium and zinc — with more to be added.

Reviewed by Patricia B. Wood, Editor, Access America Online Magazine. You may reach her at pat.wood@npr.gov.

March 28, 2000