Dietary supplement recall

Dietary supplements were collected as part of the short questionnaire after the Intake24 dietary recall was completed. Respondents were asked to include all supplements consumed in the 24 hours prior to interview and prompted to select up to 15 supplements from a coder list. The list was extracted from the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) and included around 18,000 listed medications. 

In this survey, dietary supplements included:

• vitamins
• minerals
• herbal extracts (including Chinese herbs)
• amino acids
• omega 3 fatty acids
• other fatty acids
• glucosamine/chondroitin formulations.

If respondents were unable to find their specific supplements from the provided list (for example, the supplement was new to the market), they could provide a text response. Respondents were encouraged to provide as much details as possible on the supplement, including the registration (AUST-L) number, name, brand and strength. 

Once they had reported the type of supplement, respondents were prompted for more information, including:

• dosage type (e.g. tablet, powder)
• how it was consumed (e.g. tablespoons, tablets)
• the number or amount consumed
• whether the spoon was heaped or level.

The AUSNUT supplement file contains 1,350 supplements listed by registration number and dosage type. Survey data were linked using registration number and dosage type. The registration number replaces the 8-digit code in the AUSNUT files that are provided for food and beverages. Dietary supplements were classified into sub-groups within AUSNUT 2023. Further information can be found in the AUSNUT files available on the FSANZ website.

Where a registration number was not available (for example, the response was “Vitamin D tablet” and brand/further information was not provided), the data were linked to a ‘not further defined’ category. These were used to capture similar supplements that were unable to be coded to a specific supplement. For example, ‘Dietary supplement, Vitamin D supplements, not further defined’ captures Vitamin D supplements with different strengths and brands. “Not further defined” codes were included for use in recipe creation, or when insufficient detail was provided in the survey. Forty-two individual “not further defined” codes were included for supplements (specific to dosage type).

Each supplement has a corresponding nutrient profile, calculated per dosage unit (e.g. nutrients per tablet). Some dosage units (e.g. drops, sips, tablespoons, teaspoons) were converted to a standard measure (e.g. grams, millilitres). For heaped teaspoons and tablespoons, an additional factor of 1.5 was applied to the standard measure. The nutrients per dosage unit were then multiplied by the number of doses consumed, and total nutrient intakes from dietary supplements summed for each recall day. 

Further information including details of Foods and Supplements consumed are available in the NNPAS Data Item List and the NATSINPAS Data Item List.

Data on dietary supplements collected in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (NATSIHS) 2022–23 was mapped to the AUSNUT 2011–13 food and dietary supplement classification, as AUSNUT 2023 was not available at the time of publication.

Data were checked for consistency and completeness. Specific amendments included: 

• coding free text entries to a registration number (based on description)
• checking and recoding mismatches between reported and registered AUST-L administration route
• removal of registered medications and foods
• checking for improbable or impossible supplement amounts. 

Supplements were recoded if the reported consumption route (i.e., how they took the supplement) did not align with the registered ARTG consumption route. For example, if the respondent reported consuming the supplement as a powder, but the selected product was a tablet, the supplement was recoded to the registration number for the powder version of the product. 

Some respondents reported supplements as part of the dietary recall in Intake24 (usually reported as a missing food). These supplements were removed as foods and added to the dietary supplement dataset during processing.