The differences between medicines and nutritional supplements

Nutritional supplements are foodstuffs that are intended to supplement your diet. They differ from ordinary foods either in their external appearance or the way they are used. So they may be, for example, pills, capsules or herbal extracts.  

Nutritional supplements have a nutritional or physiological effect and may contain one or more different ingredients, such as vitamins, minerals, fibres, fatty acids, amino acids and different kinds of herbal ingredients. A nutritional supplement must not appear to have an effect that improves, prevents or alleviates diseases or their symptoms. This is the job of medicines. 

Nutritional supplements are subject to food legislation and their supervision is the responsibility of the Finnish Food Authority. It is not necessary to demonstrate the effectiveness and safety of nutritional supplements, but they must not be harmful to health. Nutritional supplements are mainly sold in grocery stores and health food shops, but they can also be found in pharmacies.  

Herbal medicinal products, traditional herbal medicinal products, homeopathic products and anthroposophic products are also medicinal products. They are subject to pharmaceutical legislation and are supervised by the Finnish Medicines Agency Fimea. You can identify a medicinal product from the Vnr ID on the package, which includes a series of numbers (e.g. Vnr 11111).  

Table on the differences between medicines and nutritional supplements.

Product	Governed by what legislation?	Sales channel	Demonstration of product performance	Demonstration of product safety
Conventional medicine	Pharmaceutical legislation, marketing authorisation	Pharmacy	Clinical evidence of medical effectiveness	Clinical evidence of safety and continuous safety monitoring
Herbal medicinal product, such as a conventional medicine	Pharmaceutical legislation, marketing authorisation	Pharmacy	Established medical use and recognised efficacy of an active substance that is often based on scientific literature	An acceptable level of safety, often demonstrated in the scientific literature, and continuous safety monitoring
Traditional herbal medicinal product	Pharmaceutical legislation, registration	Pharmacy  Health food shop  Grocery store	Evidence of the use of the product as a medicinal product based on long and extensive use	An acceptable level of safety, often demonstrated in the scientific literature, and continuous safety monitoring
Homeopathic and anthroposophic products requiring market authorisation	Pharmaceutical legislation, marketing authorisation	Pharmacy	Clinical evidence of medical effectiveness	Evidence of safety (either clinical trials or scientific literature)
Registered homeopathic and anthroposophic products	Pharmaceutical legislation, registration	Pharmacy  Health food shop  Grocery store	No requirement to demonstrate effectiveness	Evidence of safety
Nutritional supplement	Food legislation, notification	Pharmacy  Health food shop  Grocery store	No requirement to demonstrate effectiveness	No requirement to demonstrate safety, but the product must not be hazardous to human health