ArticlePreventive medicine reports2021
A content analysis of marketing on the packages of dietary supplements for weight loss and muscle building.
Article in Preventive medicine reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- What Drives Nutritional Supplement Use Among Academics? An Intention-Behavior Model of Motivation, Work Stress, and Digital Influences.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- Regulation of Food Supplements and Pharmacists' Responsibility in Professional Practice: A Review.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Article
- Economic and equity evaluation of age restrictions on over-the-counter diet pills and muscle-building supplements.Health affairs scholar · 2025Article
- Associations between Chronic Medical Conditions and Persistent Dietary Supplement Use: The US Military Dietary Supplement Use Study.Nutrients · 2024Article
- A Behaviourally Informed Approach to Reducing the Risk of Inadvertent Anti-doping Rule Violations from Supplement Use.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2023Review
- Harmful marketing by commercial actors and policy ideas from youth.Health promotion international · 2023Article
- Associations between weight discrimination and the use of potentially harmful dietary supplements during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2023Article
- Financial precarity, food insecurity, and psychological distress prospectively linked with use of potentially dangerous dietary supplements during the pandemic in the US.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Most dietary supplements for weight loss and muscle growth lack scientific evidence in support of product claims and contain ingredients that can be harmful to health. Many people, however, still use these products. This paper aims to address a gap in the knowledge of the number and types of marketing claims appearing on dietary supplements for weight loss and muscle building and how they relate to the presence of an FDA disclaimer. We identified all products (n = 110) found in the weight loss and muscle building section of three stores (a pharmacy, supermarket, and superstore) in the Boston, MA area during 2013. We performed a content analysis to assess the presence of marketing claims displayed on product packaging, including claims about weight loss, safety, quality, and scientific evidence. Warnings and the FDA disclaimer were also coded. We found that, on average, products displayed 6.5 claims. Among weight loss- and muscle building- related claims, claims about reducing weight, BMI, or body fat were most common (60.9%), followed by protein claims (40.0%). Nearly half of the products made claims that scientific research supported product use. Products with the FDA disclaimer (53.6%) or a warning for vulnerable populations (56.4%) had a higher average number of claims compared to products without the disclaimer or warning (
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.