Nutritional supplements could play an important role in health care reform, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Saturday at an industry conference.
Hatch, speaking to a crowd of nearly 7,000 people attending the XanGo nutritional supplement conference at the Salt Palace Convention Center, expounded on the safety and quality of dietary aids. He said greater use of nutritional supplements could drive down health care costs.
"Some people run down the [nutritional supplement] industry without looking at how truly outstanding it really is," he said.
Hatch said he would like to see people living in poor, inner-city neighborhoods have greater access to vitamin and mineral supplements.
"People would be much better off if they took nutritional supplements," he said. "Some of the biggest health problems come from a lack of vitamins and minerals."
Hatch's comments come less than a week after the Dietary Supplement Education Alliance, a trade group, said the use of omega-3 fatty acid and lutein and zeaxanthin supplements could dramatically reduce health care costs for seniors by preventing coronary heart disease and other illnesses.
Kang Zhang, an ophthal- mologist at the Moran Eye Center contacted by telephone after Hatch's speech, said he understands Hatch's enthusiasm for supplements.
He said vitamin deficiencies can cause a whole host of medical problems, including growth and development deficiencies in children.
He said if the nutritional
supplement lutein, for example, was more widely taken, fewer people would be at risk for macular degeneration - the leading cause of blindness in the elderly.
Hatch would not divulge exactly what types and brands of products he takes, but he said he takes them every day and showed a reporter a small blue box of a half dozen pills that he planned to take with his lunch.
He said Utah's nutritional supplement industry turns out high-quality and safe products. "I have tried them all and they are excellent," he said.
Hatch said dietary supplements should be considered qualified medical expenses under Health Savings Accounts, which are growing in popularity as an alternative to traditional health insurance by providing a way for consumers to save for health care costs on a tax-free basis.
Under current federal law, nutritional supplements are not qualified medical expenses unless a physician prescribes them to treat a specific medical condition.
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