What other FTC settlements involved supplements claiming to treat chronic diseases since 2015?
Executive summary
Since 2015 the FTC has continued to challenge dietary-supplement marketers that advertise disease‑treating benefits, securing a mix of court wins, consent orders and proposed settlements aimed at products advertised to treat chronic conditions such as cognitive decline, cardiovascular disease, and diabetic neuropathy [1] [2] [3]. Public reporting and FTC pages show a pattern: the agency leverages consent decrees and litigation to stop disease claims and obtain consumer refunds, even as industry groups and some courts push back on how strictly “competent and reliable” evidence must be interpreted [4] [3] [5].
1. Prevagen and the renewed focus on cognitive-disease claims
The FTC’s December 2024 win against Prevagen’s makers is the highest‑profile recent example of enforcement targeting supplements marketed for chronic cognitive decline, where the agency and the New York Attorney General successfully challenged advertising that Prevagen improves memory and treats dementia‑related conditions [1]. The FTC framed the ruling as a reaffirmation that disease‑treatment claims for supplements require robust evidence, and the enforcement outcome signals the agency’s willingness to press cases that implicate serious chronic conditions rather than mere “support” or wellness language [1].
2. Administrative action against companies claiming to treat cardiovascular and neuropathic disease
In 2022 the FTC proposed an order banning two Texas-based companies and their owner from advertising or selling dietary supplements after alleging unsubstantiated claims that products such as “The Ultimate Heart Formula,” BG18, Black Garlic Botanicals, and Neupathic could prevent or treat cardiovascular disease and diabetic neuropathy [2]. The agency described the action as intended to stop a “long history of making baseless claims” that these supplements could treat diseases — a classic FTC remedy that combines industry exclusion with injunctive and monitoring terms [2].
3. Quincy Bioscience and the evidentiary battleground over trials and chronic‑disease claims
Courts have been a contested arena over what counts as adequate proof for disease‑related supplement claims: the Quincy Bioscience litigation illustrates that the FTC seeks strong substantiation for efficacy claims aimed at chronic conditions, while courts sometimes push back against rigid randomized‑controlled‑trial (RCT)-only requirements, noting that non‑RCT studies can still be probative in certain contexts [3]. The Quincy litigation and related FDLI analysis show the implicit tension between the FTC’s enforcement posture and defendants’ arguments about reasonable standards of evidence for supplements [3].
4. Consumer refunds, smaller settlements, and the continuing tally since 2015
The FTC’s health enforcement pages and press releases document numerous refund orders and settlements relating to supplements and health products over the past decade, with the agency stating it has filed roughly 120 cases challenging supplement health claims in recent years and sending refunds to consumers in individual matters such as Sobrenix and other settlements [4] [6]. Public materials emphasize that many actions against supplement advertisers have resulted in settlements rather than contested judicial findings, which can limit the precedential clarity of each outcome while still returning money to consumers [7] [6] [5].
5. Broader context: agency strategy, industry pushback, and limits of available reporting
FTC guidance reminds advertisers that even implied disease claims require substantiation and that modifiers like “promising” or “preliminary” do not excuse weak evidence — language the agency has used as the basis for enforcement across many cases [7]. Industry groups and some legal advocates argue the FTC overreaches or imposes impractical evidentiary burdens on supplement makers, citing Supreme Court limits on agency remedies and critiques of enforcement tactics [5] [8]. Reporting here is limited to the FTC documents and secondary coverage provided; a comprehensive, itemized list of every FTC settlement since 2015 involving chronic‑disease claims would require direct searches of the FTC docket and press releases beyond the sources cited here [7] [4].