On March 6, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unveiled its new Dietary Supplement Ingredient Directory, a webpage where the public can look up ingredients used in products marketed as dietary supplements and quickly find what the FDA has said about that ingredient and whether the agency has taken any action with regard to the ingredient. The directory is in list form and includes links to the agency’s actions and communications for each ingredient on the list. If there is a separate FDA webpage for the ingredient, the directory links to that page.

According to the FDA, the directory is intended to be a one stop shop of ingredient information that was previously found on different FDA webpages. The directory is intended to help manufacturers, retailers, and consumers stay informed about ingredients that may be found in products marketed as dietary supplements and quickly locate information about such ingredients on the FDA’s website.

The FDA noted that the directory is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all ingredients used in products marketed as dietary supplements and may not include all actions the agency has taken with respect to a particular ingredient. For example, all actions may not be listed if the agency has taken many similar actions and some older actions may not be listed, especially if they do not reflect the agency’s current position. The FDA will update the directory periodically to reflect new developments.

As the agency is instituting the Ingredient Directory, FDA will retire the FDA Dietary Supplement Ingredient Advisory List, which was a rapid-response tool meant to quickly alert the public when the agency identified ingredients that did not appear to be lawfully marketed in dietary supplements. Anyone who signed up for the Dietary Supplement Ingredient Advisory listserv will automatically receive updates to the Ingredient Directory as they become available.

For more information, visit www.fda.gov/food/dietary-supplements/dietary-supplement-ingredient-directory.