Article Review – Short Communication on Probiotic Claim Substantiation

This article review focused on the analysis of the journal article “More Information Needed on Probiotic Supplement Product Labels” by Merenstein et al., 2019, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The aim of such a review was to communicate a short critique as well as highlighting the need for fieldwork in regulatory compliance. Here, the review started with a general summary of the article, but also in conjunction with the literature review that the authors established. This was necessary to understand the article in its field of expertise whilst giving a clearer purpose on the need for more fieldwork of this kind. Without such understanding, it would have been difficult to understand the regulatory compliance of dietary supplement label regulations in the US. Then, a thorough analysis and deconstruction of the articles structure, as well as article critique, were established. The authority of the paper and other topics such as authority, accuracy, relevance, etc., were examined for effectiveness in conveying the research question that the authors were concerned with; that more information may be needed for product labels in probiotic supplements in the US. Lastly, the graphs, tables, and figures were evaluated to make a conclusion about the study as well as a discussion on the recent advances related to the label compliance of probiotic supplements. The paper, albeit was on the shorter side, was effective and was also simple in establishing a need for more information on the label. Thus, more transparency on clinical substantiation is needed.