Consumers look to heal through functional foods

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US consumers are increasingly consuming functional products with the intention of preventing or treating disease, the Natural Marketing Institute's (NMI) Steve French told SupplySide West attendees last week.

There has been an increased tendency for consumers to use functional food and beverage in hopes of preventing disease, according to French - executive vice president and managing partner of NMI -, however he indicated the gap is closing between those consumers who also take them with the hope of actually treating disease. French delivered a presentation Wednesday in Las Vegas on new consumer research and trends.

While functional foods and dietary supplements by their very nature should not be marketed to treat disease, consumers may nonetheless take their own such health motivations into account when consuming these products.

I think more and more people are just getting smarter. Functional foods (and supplements) may not be marketed to treat disease, but some of them have been shown through clinical trials to so so. However, I think the problem is that the marketing machine for drugs is way better than that of supplements.

I once read an article by Mike Adams of NewsTarget which poses an interesting question: if drugs are so good (that they are able to -- or at least marketed to be able to -- treat disease), where are the healthy drug takers?

So now people are looking for alternatives. And from the looks of it, supplements and functional foods are among the people's choices.