From Science to Finance—A Tool for Deriving Economic Implications from the Results of Dietary Supplement Clinical Studies

ABSTRACT

This article examines evidence showing that the use of key dietary supplements can reduce overall disease treatment-related hospital utilization costs associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) in the United States among those at a high risk of experiencing a costly, disease-related event. Results show that the potential avoided hospital utilization costs related to the use of omega-3 supplements at preventive intake levels among the target population can be as much as $2.06 billion on average per year from 2013 to 2020. The potential net savings in avoided CHD-related hospital utilization costs after accounting for the cost of omega-3 dietary supplements at preventive daily intake levels would be more than $3.88 billion in cumulative health care cost savings from 2013 to 2020. Furthermore, the use of folic acid, B6, and B12 among the target population at preventive intake levels could yield avoided CHD-related hospital utilization costs savings of an average savings of $1.52 billion per year from 2013 to 2020. The potential net savings in avoided CHD-related health care costs after accounting for the cost of folic acid, B6, and B12 utilization at preventive daily intake levels would be more than $5.23 billion in cumulative health care cost net savings during the same period. Thus, targeted dietary supplement regimens are recommended as a means to help control rising societal health care costs, and as a means for high-risk individuals to minimize the chance of having to deal with potentially costly events and to invest in increased quality of life.

KEYWORDS. :

• Omega-3
• B vitamin
• Dietary Supplements
• Heath Care
• Coronary heart disease
• Cost Savings

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article was funded through a grant from the CRN Foundation.

The CRN Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational foundation of the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), the leading trade association for the dietary supplement industry. The CRN Foundation provides consumers with information about responsible use of dietary supplements, and provides researchers and healthcare practitioners with education on the proper role of supplements in a healthy lifestyle.

The funding agency had no role in the design and conduct of the study in terms of data collection, management, analysis, and interpretation.

Declaration of interest: The authors are employed by Frost & Sullivan, which received remuneration from the CRN Foundation to conduct this study. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Notes

¹ The statistics presented in this article were first presented in the article by the authors in the study entitled Smart Prevention—Health Care Cost Savings Resulting from the Targeted Use of Dietary Supplement. An Economic Case for Promoting Increased Intake of Key Dietary Supplements as a Means to Combat Unsustainable Health Care Cost Growth in the United State. The article can be retrieved at http://www.frost.com/sublib/display-market-insight.do?id=285115104

² The selection of studies included in this analysis was not based on the direction, the magnitude, or statistical significance of the reported findings.

³ It is not known what percentage of this target population also suffers from CHD, but for the purposes of this analysis, we made the assumption that approximately 28% of adults over the age of 55 with CHD also are regular users of omega-3 dietary supplements and 14% of adults over the age of 55 with CHD also are regular users of B vitamin dietary supplements, respectively. Also for the purposes of this analysis, as the Ipsos survey did not ask dosage, we have made the assumption that regular users in this target population are highly likely to be consuming enough of each of the dietary supplements to provide a protective effect. More research is required to test these assumptions.