What if the information you need to manage or recover from a health condition already exists—but that information is deliberately being concealed from you?
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THE TOPLINE
- U.S. regulations classify foods and supplements as “drugs” if they’re linked to disease claims—preventing companies from sharing vast amounts of high-quality scientific evidence about their benefits and leaving consumers uninformed.
- Because natural substances can’t be patented and FDA approval is prohibitively expensive, the framework reinforces a drug-first healthcare model despite poor national health outcomes.
- Regulatory barriers discourage the funding of research on nutrient-disease interactions and limit public access to findings, creating a structural problem that undermines prevention and consumer empowerment.
Right now, you can walk into a store and buy supplements like curcumin, omega-3s, or vitamin D. But the companies selling these—and hundreds of other supplements—are legally barred from telling you what the science actually says about how they may help restore your body to health. This isn’t because the evidence is weak—it’s because the law says they can’t.
This isn’t just a technicality. The United States spends more on healthcare than any other nation, yet delivers the worst outcomes in the industrialized world with healthy life expectancy currently ranking 80th globally, with a predicted drop to 108th by 2050. At the heart of this is a legal framework that effectively writes into law that food cannot be considered medicine. Yes, the statement “Let Thy Food Be Thy Medicine”, often misattributed to Hippocrates, is illegal if associated with an “article” of food or a dietary supplement (i.e., a commercial product).
Speaking to this dilemma, Rob Verkerk, Ph.D., ANH-USA’s executive & scientific director said, “This categorization currently works in favor of both Big Food and Big Pharma, but against the public interest. Big Food gets to make and sell products that generate disease; Big Pharma then gets to maintain its monopoly on the products that can be used to treat the condition or disease. All good if Big Pharma’s products delivered the best outcomes, but the science tells a different story.”
Until these laws can be modernized using the totality of science available in the 21st century, thousands or even millions of Americans will miss out on treatment or prevention approaches that offer the best trade off between effectiveness and risk.
The Legal Trap
Under U.S. law, a product becomes a “drug” if it’s said to diagnose, treat, or prevent disease. That means if a company tells you curcumin helps with inflammation, that simple statement of fact turns the product into an unapproved drug that can then be removed from the market. This is, by way of example, precisely what happened to cherry and walnut growers who linked to peer-reviewed studies describing the health benefits of those products.
In order to say a food or supplement can treat or prevent a disease, you would need to go through FDA drug approval. For natural substances that can’t be patented, that process, which typically costs in the order of $1 billion and takes a decade, is just not feasible. So companies stay silent, and consumers—and even many physicians and other health practitioners—remain in the dark about how foods and supplements can help people recover their health without using licensed drugs. This classification also prevents nutrients from being reimbursable through insurance, or being prescribed through Medicare or Medicaid. Put simply, it’s a deliberate stitch up.
These laws allow pharmaceutical companies to monopolize healthcare, both in legal terms and in the minds of most citizens and physicians. This is why drugs are our first line of defense even though they are recognized as the third leading cause of death in the US and Europe.
The Research Bottleneck
The system also makes it harder to even study natural substances.
Rules designed for new synthetic drugs are being applied to everyday nutrients. Researchers studying something as simple as probiotics or vitamin D may have to go through the same process as a company developing a brand-new pharmaceutical if the research involves how a natural product can treat or prevent a disease.
Many scientists simply can’t get the funding to pursue this research because it’s too costly and time-consuming—especially early-career researchers. Funders know they won’t be able to get sufficient a return on investment because they know they’ll never be able to use the fruits of the research when linked to specific products.
That means fewer studies and less evidence about how we can use food as medicine.
Editor’s note: In 2022, the FDA issued a proposed rule that would, in certain circumstances, exempt researchers evaluating nutrients or food components from the IND requirement. This is a significant step forward that ANH-USA played a key role in achieving. However, it remains a proposed rule only — it has not yet been finalized. The previous IND requirement remains in effect until a final rule is published.
A Structural Problem—Not a Personal One
We’re often told that chronic disease is the result of personal choices, but that framing overlooks these deeper, structural problems. People cannot make informed decisions when they’re denied access to information in the first place. At the same time, scientists struggle to build the evidence needed to guide better health outcomes when research is blocked or discouraged.
How ANH is Working to Change the Rules
We won’t solve the chronic disease crisis by telling people to “make better choices” while denying them access to truthful, science-based information about the products that may help prevent, manage, or recover from disease.
Real progress requires three things: scientists must be free to study nutrients and other natural substances without drug-style barriers; companies must be allowed to communicate lawful, evidence-based information about their products; and patients and practitioners must be able to access lower-risk natural options that are affordable and clinically relevant.
That is why ANH is advancing a coordinated reform agenda: modernizing outdated legal definitions, expanding appropriate use of medical foods and compounded medicines, protecting nutrition research from drug-style restrictions, and advancing a genuine right to try for patients and practitioners alike.
This is not just about market access. It is about restoring scientific integrity, informed choice, and a health system that serves people instead of protecting entrenched commercial interests. ANH is working to change that system—and with enough public pressure, it can be changed.
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Thank you, as always, for your vital information. As far as I know, no other organization gives us the kind of important news on the real healthcare nutrition available vs prescription drugs. And, you make it so easy to send a message to our representatives! Doesn’t anyone ever realize the natural way is the best way to PREVENT disease? I’m almost 76 years old & remember what it was like before Big Pharma became so huge, now dominating the advertising world. As my grandmother used to say, “A ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. There was common sense back then…which now seems to be in short supply.
Again…thank you!