Many human nutraceutical ingredients and supplements have been used in various forms for hundreds of years. It is often because of this ‘historical use’ that certain ways of preparing and extracting ingredients were shown to be safe and effective. Those ingredients and mixtures that couase illness, death, or did not work were clearly not used.

Modern science has started to pick up many of the threads of traditional medicinal plant and animal products that have been developed by various cultures over the
centuries. This had led to standardized approaches for extraction, nutraceuticals preparation, characterization of safety and function using a variety of in vitro and in vivo techniques. There are entire scientific journals devoted to nutraceuticals, phytochemicals and functional foods. In addition to these, thousands of research papers are published unually in many scientific journal that focus on topics such as physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, toxicology and food safety.

The current trend in human nutraceutical supplements is to have a blend of ingredients that targets multiple tissues that work in harmony to maintain health.
There are numerous nutraceutical and health supplements that take a traditional one ingredient – one tissue approach, with numerous companies making and selling essentially the same products.

YOU would like to have nutraceutical supplements that are a blend of ingredients with synergistic or additive effects, that are safe with most modern medications and other common nutraceutical ingredients. It is imperative that design of these blends uses the best evidence-based research in ingredient selection and for apportionment of each ingredient to the blend. Novel blends should also be tested for safety and function:

• Contraindications need to be discovered if present
• Additive effects need to be explored
• Synergistic effects need to be explored