KEY POINTS

Nutraceuticals are regulated as food products, not drugs, despite their ability to modify an animal’s health beyond meeting nutritional needs.

Before prescribing a nutraceutical or therapeutic diet, veterinarians should review the literature supporting the use of the product and gather information on the functional ingredients, their mechanisms of action, efficacy, and safety.

As with psychopharmacologic agents, behavioral nutraceuticals and therapeutic diets should only be prescribed in conjunction with behavior modification and environmental management plans.

Some nutraceuticals and diets can be prescribed incombination with psychopharmacologic agents, but attention must be paid to the product’s functional ingredients and mechanism of action so that adverse interactions are avoided.