In South Africa, food supplements or health supplements are a subcategory of Complementary medicines. The applicable legal framework of these is the Medicines and Related Substances Act, 1965 (Act No. 101 of 1965).
a) Complementary medicine
"Complementary medicine " means any substance or mixture of substances that:
- originates from plants, fungi, algae, seaweeds, lichens, minerals, animals or other substance as determined by the Authority;
- is used or purporting to be suitable for use or manufactured or sold for use in maintaining, complementing, or assisting the physical or mental state or to diagnose, treat, mitigate, modify, alleviate, or prevent disease or illness or the symptoms or signs thereof or abnormal physical or mental state of a human being or animal; and
- is used as a health supplement or in accordance with those disciplines as determined by the Authority.
b) Health Supplements
“Health supplement” is defined as any substance, extract or mixture of substances as determined by the Authority, sold in dosage forms used or purported for use in restoring, correcting, or modifying any physical or mental state by:
- complementing health;
- supplementing the diet; or
- a nutritional effect, and excludes injectable preparations, medicines or substances listed as Schedule 1 or higher in the Act.
Further, the Health supplements guideline explains that the use of the words “contributes”, “assists”, “helps”, “aids”, or “maintains” are the basis for claim formulation together with a beneficial physiological effect based on generally accepted scientific evidence.
