New Tool Helps Healthcare Providers Leverage FDA's Dietary Supplement Ingredient Advisory List To Inform Care Decisions And Advise Patients

The Natural Medicines FDA Advisory tool identifies commercial products containing ingredients flagged by the FDA, and provides resources on safety and use to help mitigate risks to patients.

News provided by

TRC Healthcare

Jul 25, 2019, 09:00 ET

STOCKTON, Calif., July 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- TRC® Healthcare (Therapeutic Research Center or TRC), a leading provider of medication advisory and learning solutions and the author of Pharmacist's Letter, announced today a new tool in its Natural Medicines database that equips healthcare providers with additional, in-depth information to help them quickly find which dietary supplement ingredients are included on the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Dietary Supplement Ingredient Advisory List, what risks these ingredients pose, and which commercially available products contain these ingredients. The FDA created the list in April 2019 as a way to inform the public on "ingredients that do not appear to be lawfully included in products marketed as dietary supplements."

The new tool expounds on the FDA list by tapping into the safety and effectiveness ratings in TRC's robust, evidence-based Natural Medicines database of dietary supplements, natural medicines, and complementary alternative and integrative therapies. Leveraging a repository of more than 1,400 monographs and over 147,000 commercially available products, the advisory tool allows healthcare providers to get detailed safety and efficacy information about products containing these concerning ingredients, helping them to make more informed decisions and advise patients and consumers accordingly.

"Our new FDA Advisory tool puts essential and relevant ingredient information at clinicians' fingertips, helping them put FDA alerts about questionable dietary supplements in better context for their patients," said Joshua Conrad, PharmD and Vice President of Editorial and Content at TRC Healthcare. "Having this tool ready for use just weeks after the FDA Dietary Supplement Ingredient Advisory List became available demonstrates TRC's commitment to providing cutting-edge, evidence-based guidance and recommendations that help improve patient care."

Updated daily, Natural Medicines delivers unbiased, evidence-based information on individual natural medicine ingredients and commercial brand products. In addition to being the most authoritative resource available for dietary supplements, natural medicines, and complementary alternative and integrative therapies, the database also includes interactive resources with information on safety, effectiveness, and interactions, including "checker" tools help identify:

Potential sources of adverse events
Nutrient depletions that can result from certain over-the-counter meds
Potential supplement-drug interactions
Effectiveness of natural medicines for certain conditions and diseases
Pregnancy and lactation considerations for certain vitamins, minerals, herbs, supplements, and alternative therapies

For more information about Natural Medicines, visit the TRC website.

About TRC Healthcare (Therapeutic Research Center)

TRC is the leading provider of digital medication learning that updates, informs, and educates healthcare providers across the continuum of care. In addition to its highly regarded Pharmacist's Letter, Prescriber's Letter, Pharmacy Technician's Letter, Nurse's Letter and Natural Medicines online resources, TRC provides additional online solutions for hospital and community clinicians that expand on its trusted recommendations, such as drug comparison charts, patient education handouts, FAQs, and tutorials in its web-based products. In addition, TRC provides online continuing education programs for medication learning, competency, and compliance programs, and keeps clinicians and administrators informed via its continuing education (CE) dashboard and CE Organizer. TRC provides the largest catalog of education and advisory services in the industry for pharmacy, delivering nearly 500 course options to help technicians and clinicians. TRC leads the way in the training of new pharmacy technicians with Pharmacy Technicians University (PTU), the first online accredited, interactive training program of its kind. Nearly 500,000 healthcare professionals rely on TRC's advisory and education service to access concise, unbiased, timely information to improve medication use, prevent medication errors, and improve overall patient care, quality and outcomes.

SOURCE TRC Healthcare