Abstract
The global market for dietary supplements has advanced in recent years capitalizing on the growing awareness of healthy living worldwide. Supplements provide enhanced nutritional levels for daily competitive performance. However, there is a need to explore the quality of dietary supplements as there are few studies related to this area. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the microbiological quality of dietary supplements in the local markets of Saudi Arabia. The total bacterial count, coliform, Escherichia coli, Salmonella, and Staphylococcus aureus were included in this analysis. The 80 most popular supplements were tested in this study. Our results showed that microbial contamination was present in only nine products. The microbial level ranged from 1.69–8.43 Log CFU/mL. The higher level of total count (8.43 Log CFU/mL) and S. aureus (8.39 Log CFU/mL) were found in supplement glutamine. Amino acids, dynamisan, glucosamine sulfate, glucosaiene, creatine monohydrate, whey protein, and folate acid also showed the presence of bacterial contamination. Our findings suggested that improvements are needed in these supplements which were tested for microbiological contamination. These findings highlight the fact that a review of product safety and quality is becoming increasingly important for consumer health. This will help to ensure safe products available for today’s savvy, health-conscious consumer.
Highlights
The global market for dietary supplements has gained momentum in the past decade, and demand is increasing every year
According to the United States’ Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994, dietary supplements are categorized as any “product” intended to supplement a diet and bears or contains one or more dietary ingredients (DSHEA, 1994)
Samples were plated on Xylose lysine deoxycholate (XLD) agar for Salmonella, and Baird-Parker agar base (BPAB) for Staphylococcus aureus count (Aljaloud et al, 2009)
Summary
The global market for dietary supplements has gained momentum in the past decade, and demand is increasing every year. There is an increased awareness of the importance of supplement safety. The popularity of traditional herbs and botanicals is due in large part as these products are safe and consumable (Ravindran and Duraisankar, 2012). There is an increasing concern about the quality of dietary supplements as these products have been found to contain varying amounts of active ingredients in addition to contaminants and adulterants (Angell and Kassirer, 1998; Borins, 1998). There are very limited published information regarding the quality and safety of these products in Saudi Arabian markets.
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