WASHINGTON, DC—Supplement companies looking for a new way to reach consumers may just find it through your office door.

Representatives from vitamin and nutraceutical companies are literally following the footsteps of their pharmaceutical company peers as they beat a path to your office. As with the pharmaceutical industry, leaders in the supplement field believe this is a good way to make physicians aware of new products and new science.

But the supplement industry’s efforts to take conventional medicine out for lunch is coming at an awkward time. A growing number of physicians, hospital administrators and clinic managers have become disgruntled with the promotional practices of pharmaceutical companies. Some clinics have begun to limit detailing visits and restrict the number of drug samples the pharmaceutical reps can leave behind.

Supplement representatives, if they hope to win the welcome of the nation’s physicians, must proceed very carefully with substantial data in hand.

At a marketing conference for makers of dietary supplements and functional foods sponsored by the Strategic Research Institute, a business education company, consultants and analysts presented the supplement industry with a consistent message: product claims must be backed up by good, solid scientific data.

Jeff Nedelman, president of Strategic Communication, an industry public relations firm put it bluntly: “Science is the best way to drive the message of safety, efficacy, and differentiation.” Manufacturers and distributors were urged to invest more in research. For those that have studies to support their claims, targeting health care professionals may be among the best ways to get the word out.

This means the industry visits can provide you with a good opportunity to educate yourself about the products your patients are trying, as well as to ask the many tough questions about herbs, vitamins, and nutraceuticals that you’ve been wondering about all these years.

Physicians are discovering dietary supplements, and the supplement industry has definitely discovered physicians. Marketing expert Linda Gilbert, president of HealthFocus, pointed to her company’s survey of supplement consumers in which 38% said their physician was a significant source of information on nutrition and health products. Steven French, managing partner of the Natural Marketing Institute, sees that figure even higher at 49%.

Functional food manufacturers, including McNeil Consumer Healthcare, makers of Benecol, a butter-like spread that lowers cholesterol levels, said their efforts to launch new products was specifically aimed at physicians.

In an ideal world, this information would translate into companies funding more and better research studies of sufficient size and relevance to justify supplement claims. However, despite the millions of dollars being spent on supplements, manufacturers claim their profit margins are shrinking.

In the real world, suggesting individual supplement companies privately fund large-scale product research is like suggesting unilateral disarmament to a nation at war. Companies balk at spending more on research, especially when their competitors are sinking massive dollars into marketing. And as long as there is no regulation requiring supplement manufacturers to demonstrate the efficacy of their products, why should any one company bite the bullet alone?

At least one industry insider projected a change on the horizon. Anthony Almada, president of IMAGINutrition, believes that over the next decade, “We will see the emergence of a [supplement] industry something like the drug industry, with regulations that require products to have true validation … and a shake-out of products with no science or pirated science.”

Visits from company representatives to your office can provide a good forum not only for hearing what the supplement-makers have to say, but also for letting them know what most concerns and interests you about their products.