Functional ingredients take complementary and alternative medicine expenditure to almost $34 billion.
Expenditure on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) - including functional ingredients such as herbal supplements - totalled almost $34 billion (£20 billion) in 2007, reports Nutraceuticals World.
The figures were compiled by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) as part of the 2007 National Health Interview Survey.
Dr Richard Nahin, acting director of the extramural research division at NCCAM, tells Nutraceuticals World: "These data indicate that the US public makes millions of visits to CAM providers each year and spends billions of dollars for these services, as well as for self-care forms of CAM."
The research found almost two-fifths (38 per cent) of survey respondents use CAM, whether it be functional ingredients, acupuncture, chiropractic or meditation, to supplement their mainstream medical treatment for a variety of conditions.
According to the NCCAM, functional foods in the form of probiotics have been seen to carry benefits for treating diarrhoea, bladder cancer, intestinal infections and childhood eczema.
