Are dietary supplements health products?

There is no black or white answer to this question. The two are highly overlapping categories and cannot be directly equated.

The full name of "health products" that we often refer to in China is health food, which has an exclusive blue hat logo. It needs to be filed or registered by the regulatory authorities, and its safety and health effects can be verified before it can be put on the market. A large part of these products are positioned to supplement nutrients that are insufficient in daily dietary intake, such as vitamins, minerals, and plant extracts, which themselves fall into the category of dietary supplements. In this case, it is okay to say that "dietary supplements are health products."

But this statement is not entirely correct. The core difference lies in two common situations. One is dietary supplements with ordinary food batch numbers. Many brands of vitamin gummies and plant protein powders are registered as ordinary foods. They only mark "dietary nutritional supplements" on the packaging and do not have a blue hat logo. According to the regulatory classification, they are not health foods, which is what everyone often calls health products.； The other category is imported dietary supplements purchased from overseas, such as the overseas versions of fish oil and cranberry capsules that many people often stock up on. They are classified and regulated as dietary supplements in the country of origin, but they have not applied for my country’s blue hat certification and are not officially registered health products in the domestic regulatory system.

A while ago, an old customer came to complain to me, saying that she bought two boxes of lutein ester gummies in the live broadcast room. The anchor kept saying that they were eye health products, but when she received the goods, she turned over and over to find the blue hat. There was only a small "dietary supplement" label. I went to the merchant to argue that they would not admit false advertising. In fact, they were stuck in the fuzzy zone of this category - the merchant said it was "food with health benefits" in a broad sense, but the official definition of health products must have a blue hat, and those without a label are not counted.

In fact, the relationship between the two is a bit like "sports shoes" and "professional running shoes." Many professional running shoes are themselves sports shoes for daily sports, but not all sports shoes can meet the cushioning and support standards of professional running shoes, and not all products labeled with sports shoes can be called professional running shoes.

When I usually give advice to consultants, I never dwell on the difference between the two names. I just follow the needs: If you just want to supplement the vitamin C that you usually lack in food, whether it is an ordinary food dietary supplement or a health product with a blue hat, as long as the dosage is compliant and produced by a regular manufacturer, you can use it.； If you want to find products with clear efficacy claims and verified effects by regulatory authorities, then just look for products with blue hats. To put it bluntly, classification is for regulators and practitioners to see. What is most important is that ordinary consumers can use it correctly and suit themselves.