Integrative medicine and the dietary supplement business are booming.
Nutrition Business Journal (NBJ) today announced the release of its 2009 Integrative Medicine Report.
This 177-page report is based on more than nine years of annual analysis of the U.S. integrative medicine, complementary healthcare and practitioner supplement market and features market size and growth estimates through 2018. Formerly known as the Complementary & Alternative Medicine (CAM) report, NBJ’s 2009 Integrative Medicine Report provides an in-depth analysis of the $45 billion U.S. integrative medicine market, as well as the $2 billion practitioner channel supplement market.
“Given the United State’s rising healthcare costs and the federal government’s focus on healthcare reform, the 2009 Integrative Medicine report is certainly one of the most timely and relevant market research documents that we have ever released,” said Nutrition Business Journal Associate Editor Jason Phillips. “This report contains valuable information for the debate on how to improve the ailing U.S. healthcare industry by focusing on disease prevention and providing cost-effective alternatives that promote health and wellness.”
The time is right for nutrition companies to tap into the growing consumer demand for integrative health solutions and mounting desire among conventional practitioners to create a healthcare system that is centered on disease prevention and treating people rather than symptoms. NBJ’s 2009 Integrative Medicine Report brings you an essential business tool that will give your company a strategic advantage in the integrative medicine market. “This report is a critical piece of intelligence for supplement manufacturers and ingredient suppliers,” said Nutrition Business Journal Publisher and Editorial Director Patrick Rea. “Not only does it detail a stable and fast-growing sales channel for dietary supplement product and ingredients, but it also lays out the competitive market landscape for the primary health influencers in consumers’ lives.”
In this report you will find:
• A breakdown of integrative medicine therapy/service revenues from 1997-2018
• National & individual healthcare expenditure estimates
• Practitioner population growth in United States from 1999-2018
• Comparison of practitioner channel nutrition industry sales and supplement sales to other distribution channels
• A list of top practitioner channel companies ranked by U.S. supplement sales and one-page company profiles on the top 12 supplement companies in the practitioner channel
• A condition-specific supplement sales analysis from 1999-2017
Visit www.nutritionbusinessjournal.com to purchase the report.
NBJ is the only comprehensive source for information on integrative medicine service revenues, detailed modality revenues and supplement sales by practitioners with a historical and forecast perspective.
Nutrition Business Journal is an executive newsletter for decision-makers in the natural, nutrition and complementary and alternative health industries. NBJ’s exclusive research and editorial focus on the strategic issues of the nutrition industry has made it a leading business intelligence resource for subscribers since 1996. To purchase detailed market research reports, subscribe to the NBJ, or sign up for the NBJ’s free weekly e-newsletter, please visit www.nutritionbusinessjournal.com. NBJ also hosts The NBJ Summit, an invitation-only retreat for C-level executives in the nutrition industry each July. For more information, visit www.nbjsummit.com.
New Hope Natural Media (www.newhope.com), a division of the Penton Media, Inc., is the leading media resource and information provider for the natural, organic and healthy products industry with print, in-person/event, and e-business products and services. Penton Media, Inc. is the largest independent business-to-business media company in the U.S., serving more than six million business professionals every month. The company’s market-leading brands are focused on 30 industries and include 113 trade magazines, 145 Web sites, 150 industry trade shows and conferences, and more than 500 information data products. Headquartered in New York City, the privately held company is owned by MidOcean Partners and U.S. Equity Partners II, an investment fund sponsored by Wasserstein & Co., LP, and its coinvestors. For additional information on the company and its businesses, visit www.penton.com
A probiotic pitch:
Many consumers learn everything they know about probiotics through yogurt commercials. But are commercials enough to truly understand the importance of probiotics?
“Seventy percent of our immune response is directed toward catching foreign invaders introduced through our intestinal system,” says Dr. Roberta Lee, vice chair, Department of Integrative Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. “We now know that gut microflora positively impact the immune system’s efficacy, and is not something to be taken lightly.”
Supplementing your diet with probiotics is being stressed by more doctors. Fermented dairy products and fortified foods are the way most people have been getting probiotics. But it is hard to know which probiotics one may be getting and in what quantity.
“Consumers may not be able to depend on their probiotic content solely from what they eat at the dinner table,” says Dr. Lee. “Supplemental probiotic products serve as viable sources by providing exact amounts of good bacteria. With food, you never know what you are getting. But with specific probiotic supplements, you know the exact types and amounts of each bacteria in an easy-to-take dosage.”
One such supplemental probiotic on the market, Vidazorb, provides essential bacteria in the form of chewable tablets. With a shelf life exceeding two years and requiring no refrigeration, it comes in several formulations, including a daily age defense with OPC, SuperC with Vitamin C and Belly Boost for children ages four and up. Using supplements like Vidazorb can provide a wide array of essential health benefits that might otherwise be unobtainable.
“The health benefits of a probiotic supplement can boost an individual’s health in many ways,” says Dr. Lee. “Helping control diarrhea, including that brought on by antibiotics or other medications; aiding the management of certain conditions, like Crohn’s Disease and Irritable Bowel Syndrome; addressing feminine health issues; managing lactose intolerance and constipation; and improving metabolism are all instances where probiotics can help.”
For more information, visit www.vidazorb.com.
Go, little friendly bacteria!
Acupuncture is now being used to help with inmates:
Ancient Chinese medicine came to Baltimore’s jail 16 years ago with the promise of curbing the cravings of drug addiction. Since then, acupuncture has been the centerpiece of a treatment program that serves nearly 700 inmates each year.
Modern science has not found solid evidence that it works. Still, the inmates claim that with acupuncture, all they crave are the meditative moments it brings. They say it soothes them and helps clear their cluttered minds to find the strength to confront their addiction…
District Judge Jamey H. Hueston thinks every addict should try it. “I am a huge fan of acupuncture,” says Hueston, who presides over the city’s drug court. “I have sent people in there kicking and screaming, resentful and scowling at me. And later they say, ‘Judge, thank you.'”
Acupuncture is the key element of the Addicts Changing Together Substance Abuse Program administered by the city’s drug court. Beginning for women in 1993 and for men three years later, the program steers nonviolent offenders to a rigorous 45-day behind-bars regimen in lieu of a longer prison sentence.
In addition to 25 acupuncture sessions, inmates get group and individual counseling, GED training and life-skills classes. Recently, the program added a family mediation option for addicts who long ago burned family bridges but want to mend them.
Participants reside in a separate dorm at the Baltimore City Detention Center, away from the general population, and are encouraged to rely on each other for support.
The theory behind the acupuncture treatment is that it releases naturally occurring chemicals in the body that ease the symptoms of drug withdrawal and help users fight their addiction.
More and more lawyers and judges are looking to acupuncture as a preferred “sentence.”
And finally, here’s a look at political wrangling around integrative medicine:
The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, or DSHEA, is a decent law. It says supplements are to be treated as food, not drugs, which only makes sense. Supplements are safe and natural food substances. As such, they can’t be patented.
This, of course, really irritates the pharmaceutical industry. If they can’t get patent protection on a vitamin or mineral, how in the world can they make money off of them? How can they keep smaller supplement manufacturers off their playground?
The answer is simple. Big Pharma already has the US Food and Drug Administration in its pocket. Its money pays many FDA salaries. It helps FDA write opinions on the safety of various drugs (the very drugs that are being assessed by the supposedly independent Agency). All the drug makers need to do now is to chip away at DSHEA, bit by bit.
In January, FDA responded to a Citizen Petition filed by the drug manufacturer Biostratum by banning the sale of pyridoxamine – one of the three natural forms of vitamin B6 found in nature – and declared pyridoxamine a “new drug.” Why? Because Biostratum manufactures a drug based on pyridoxamine. By receiving a favorable ruling from FDA, Biostratum now has a solid monopoly on the sale of pyridoxamine.
Up next: a petition filed by another pharmaceutical company, requesting a ban on dietary supplements containing pyridoxal 5′-phosphate (P5P), another natural form of vitamin B6. The petitioner, Medicure Pharma, actually admits that P5P is a naturally occurring molecule and that it qualifies as a dietary supplement. Medicure’s point of contention is that P5P in dietary supplements will infringe on their profits from a drug they are currently developing, which includes P5P as an active ingredient!
Our law office deals quite a bit with dietary supplement claims on the borderland of impermissible disease claims.
Michael H. Cohen is an attorney providing legal services to entrepreneurs, and health care law advice to businesses in the wellness industry, including medical spas and integrative medicine clinics, physicians, chiropractors, naturopathic physicians, massage therapists, energy healers, nutritionists and herbalists and others, as well as companies with new technologies including quantum, resonance, and other bio-energy devices. He is also known as a spiritual lawyer, because of his interest in spirituality among other alternative medicine modalities, and in advising entrepreneurs and businesses with legal advice that is grounded yet intuitive. Read the Entrepreneur’s Legal Toolkit for small business legal issues. To speak with a lawyer about health care law issues pertaining to complementary and alternative medicine, or to consult a small business lawyer about legal issues for entrepreneurs and emerging enterprises, contact the Law Offices of Michael H. Cohen.