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People in healthcare consider supplements to be drugs. FDA doesn't recognize them as drugs for political reasons. Everyone else does. They do meet the definition of drug. They can interact and impact other drugs. St. John's Wort is one of the worst offenders.
NIH has done a number of studies on alternative medicine. They have an entire department on it. Their studies and others have shown very little positive data about supplements. They see, in general, a lot of placebo effect. An issue with supplements is the variance in purity. However, all supplement manufacturers are now required to obey to the botanical Good Manufacturers Policy. Hopefully, that will help to standardize things.
It is actually cheaper for an insurance company to insure 100 people than 1 person. With the bigger group, you can look at the statistics. An individual can be an anomally, but the group is not.
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