Making sense of how dietary supplements help or harm adults
A Translational Informatics Framework to Mine Efficacy and Safety of Dietary Supplements
This project uses medical records and public data to learn which dietary supplements help adults and which may cause harm.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of Minnesota NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Minneapolis, United States) |
| Project ID | NIH-11246877 on NIH RePORTER |
What this research studies
Researchers will combine information from scientific papers, social media, FDA adverse event reports, and electronic health records to build an enriched dietary supplement knowledge base called eDISK. They will develop an informatics toolkit (iDISK-Mine) to find links between supplement use and health outcomes across multiple health systems. The team will run the tools on multi-site EHR data to test how well the findings generalize and how useful they are for clinicians and researchers. The goal is to bring scattered real-world data together to support safer, more effective supplement use for adults.
Who could benefit from this research
Good fit: Adults who take dietary supplements or are worried about supplement safety, especially those with ongoing health conditions or who take prescription medicines, are most relevant to this work.
Not a fit: People under 21, individuals who do not use dietary supplements, or those seeking immediate clinical treatment may not directly benefit from this information-focused project.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this could help patients and clinicians choose safer, more effective supplements and spot harmful side effects sooner.
How similar studies have performed: Previous projects have used EHRs and adverse event reports to flag safety signals, but combining literature, social media, regulatory reports, and multi-site EHRs into a single supplements knowledge base is relatively new.
Where this research is happening
Minneapolis, United States
- University of Minnesota — Minneapolis, United States (Active)
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Zhang, Rui — University of Minnesota
- Study coordinator: Zhang, Rui
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.