International Approaches to Natural Health Product Regulations

This report outlines and compares regulatory approaches to natural health products (NHPs) in Australia, Canada, the EU, UK, USA and China.

For the purpose of this report, NHPs are a group of health and wellness products. They include nutritional supplements and products used in traditional healing practices. They are mostly derived from natural ingredients but can also contain synthetic equivalents (eg, ascorbic acid for vitamin C and folic acid for the B vitamin, folate). They come in edible and inedible forms (eg, tablets, powders, creams and inhalants). Examples include nutritional supplements (eg, vitamin E, magnesium and sports supplements), herbal products (eg, echinacea tablets, St John’s Wort capsules, and kawakawa balm), and animal products (eg, deer velvet and fish oil capsules).

The report also covers regulation of homeopathy in Germany and Ayurveda in India.

Information in this report was extracted from both peer-reviewed and grey literature.