To assess the safety profile of dietary supplements with a focus on those purchased online or reported via the internet.

Among the 2,367 reports of Adverse Reactions (ARs) to dietary supplements collected within the Italian Phitovigilance System, 49.4% were from citizens and 33.7% from companies. From these we selected 129 reports (6%) in which an online purchase or an adverse reaction retrieved from the web was indicated (e.g. Amazon®). The most frequent ARs referred to the gastrointestinal tract (31.4%) and the central nervous system (17.6%). Nineteen percent were used for sleep disorders and 14% for disturbances of the prostate.

The Italian Phytovigilance System is the only tool that provides information on the possible risks associated with the use of food supplements purchased online but the quality of the information collected needs to be improved.