I create documentation that helps market your products, including dietary supplements, skin care, and other nutrition and wellness products.
It’s important that any company marketing such products rely on proven information in its communications with the public and oversight bodies, and have reliable evidence available to back up all claims. I provide claims substantiation documents for products and ingredients to satisfy regulatory requirements, and conceive and review labels and marketing collateral.
As a highly experienced senior scientist, I have the credentials, knowledge, and practical familiarity with the kinds of claims that your company may be making. For example, my experience carrying out scientific research on heart disease, diabetes, and inflammation has provided me with expertise devising claims in support of heart and metabolic health. From my experience as a senior scientist for supplement manufacturers, I have knowledge regarding the proper language for regulatory compliance and I can strengthen the claims for your products.
Product labels are an important source of information, but much label text is misleading or at best not helpful. I write label text that is evidence-based and highlights the product’s benefits.
For example, for a nootropic product containing caffeine plus L-theanine:
“Clinical research has shown that caffeine and L-theanine have a synergistic effect on attention and accuracy, and together support healthy focus and memory better than the use of each ingredient by itself.”
And for a novel ingredient that boosts bone density, Milk Basic Protein:
“Shown in four clinical studies to promote healthy bone density in just six months, MBP® activates bone-building cells and appears to help bones efficiently utilize dietary calcium.”
My expertise includes
Analyzing scientific research to devise strong label claims in compliance with FDA and FTC guidelines.
Documenting the evidence for structure-function claims, health claims, and nutrient content claims.
Responding to FDA and NAD inquiries, and supporting other legal/regulatory needs.
Evaluating products, dietary ingredients, quality control, identity testing, and excipients.
Interpreting the latest findings in nutrition, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and inflammation, based on my research experience at UC Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, and Stanford.
Expert opinions on dietary supplements and nutritional science
I serve as an expert in support of health and nutrition-related claims. Evaluating and summarizing the scientific literature has been a common theme throughout my career spanning laboratory research, teaching at the college level, and product development.
As a researcher and formulator in the dietary supplement industry, I was responsible for product substantiations that covered every aspect of product and ingredient claims including preclinical and clinical research on dietary ingredients, certifications, excipients, and identity testing. My experience includes writing responses to inquiries—about dietary supplement label claims—from the FDA and the National Advertising Division (NAD).
I’m confident drawing conclusions based on the science, even when this involves challenging public health pronouncements or widely accepted points of view. For example, until recently medical professionals taught that all types of dietary fat should be avoided. Knowing that this advice was not supported by scientific research and could be harmful, I wrote a book, Fat Is Not the Enemy, and created a course at Stanford University called Fat Nutrition and Current Health Concerns. In this class, students read research articles and discussed the lack of evidence for associations that were claimed to exist between dietary fats and cancer, obesity, and heart disease.
