If you have recently visited your local pharmacy, you may have come across the shelf (or shelves, or aisle, or aisles) of supplements geared at weight loss. There are so many different supplements – promising to do many different things – that it can be difficult for a physician to counsel his or her patient about using them. And there are so many people using these supplements – by one count more than half of adult Americans have used one such product.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) recently set out guidelines for doctors regarding their patients’ use of vitamin and mineral supplements. Although the guidelines do not attempt to analyze the merits of using any particular supplement, they do group each supplement by category, and within each category define the possible issues associated with taking the supplement.

This guidance appears to be a useful tool for clinicians in addressing this with their patients, as it gathers in one place the recommendations from different sources in one convenient location.

If you have any questions yourself about what the guidelines say about how such supplements may affect you, you can read here:

[Vitamin and Mineral Supplements – What Clinicians Need to Know](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2672264?utm_source=STAT+Newsletters&utm_campaign=6ba0e08139-MR&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8cab1d7961-6ba0e08139-149951437)