Amy Strickland, MS, lecturer at the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, joined more than 50 other professors and graduate students from university nutrition and food science departments throughout the country to participate in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) first intensive practicum on dietary supplement research. The course, "Current Issues and Recent Developments in Dietary Supplement Research: An Intensive Practicum," was held on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland, May 21-25, 2007.
ODS offered this course to provide essential knowledge of dietary supplements to professors and their doctoral or post-doctoral students with a serious interest in this subject. Experts from NIH, academic institutions, and federal regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) served as speakers.
The ODS practicum provided a thorough overview of issues, concepts, unknowns and controversies about dietary supplements and supplement ingredients. It also emphasized the importance of scientific investigations to evaluate the efficacy, safety and value of these products for health promotion and disease prevention and treatment, as well as how to carry out this type of research.
On May 23 participants spent the day at the U.S. Deptartment of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC, to meet with representatives from professional associations, media, the dietary supplement industry and consumer advocacy groups that study, advocate, regulate or educate about dietary supplements.
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