Risk Omission and Limited Disclosure in Dietary Supplement Promotion by Social Media Influencers

Instagram influencers in Switzerland and Austria presented 1,120 dietary supplement offerings with 73.7% of advertisements lacking required advertising disclosure and only 2.3% mentioning harms.

• Why it matters: Supplements can pose adverse effects, drug interactions, and contamination-related harms, yet influencer content may shape consumer decisions without balanced safety information.
• What they did: A cross-sectional content analysis examined 727 Instagram posts from 84 influencer accounts, coding supplement types, tone, disclosure, persuasive strategies, and whether benefits or harms were communicated.
• The result: Benefits appeared in 24.0% of presentations, while harms appeared in 2.3%, and no presentation mentioned drug interactions, contamination risks, or contraindications; health-credentialed influencers were more likely to include evidence cues (adjusted OR 81.05).

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