Expiration dates, "use by" guidelines, or "manufactured on" notices are printed on the labels of nearly all consumable products nowadays. When it comes to dietary supplements, who determines those dates––and what do they really mean?
What's In A Date?
"Typically, the responsible party is the one listed as the manufacturer or distributor on the label of the dietary supplement product," said Andrew Shao, Interim Senior Vice President of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs at the Council for Responsible Nutrition. Manufacturers use stability studies––a series of experiments exposing a product to a range of different storage conditions––to inform their expiration date calculations.
Stability testing enables researchers to examine products when stored under ideal conditions––in the dark, at room temperature and low humidity, generally––as well as more extreme circumstances, like those that might occur during shipping and transport. Shao noted that supplement makers often use a combination of "accelerated" methods--where products are exposed to extreme conditions for a short period of time--and "real time" studies, in which the products are exposed to more normal conditions. In both cases, analytical chemists track any changes in quality that occur over a designated period.
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