Nestlé Needs FDA Approval to Claim BOOST Drinks Help Control Blood Glucose Levels, Class Action Says

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Nestlé USA faces a proposed class action that alleges the company does not have the FDA approval necessary to lawfully claim its BOOST glucose control products help diabetes patients manage blood sugar levels. 

The 34-page complaint argues that Nestlé’s glucose control representations amount to express or implied disease claims that require testing and approval by the Food and Drug Administration before being used in advertising. According to the suit, the following Nestlé BOOST products are mislabeled and “trick[]” reasonable consumers into believing the supplements can prevent and treat diabetes: 

• BOOST Glucose Control;
• BOOST Glucose Control High Protein; and
• BOOST Glucose Control Max. 

As the suit tells it, companies such as Nestlé have “tapped into consumer anxieties” with regard to preventing and treating diabetes and prediabetes. The lawsuit alleges Nestlé’s representations that the BOOST supplements control glucose are deceptive in that they’re reasonably understood by consumers to mean that the products affirmatively control blood glucose levels, essentially that drinking the products will make their glucose levels better than they were before. According to the case, Nestle’s own clinical trial concluded that the BOOST supplements were “associated with a lesser rise in glucose levels as compared to one other nutritional drink” that went unidentified in the study.

Overall, the BOOST products do not control glucose, but rather produce what the case calls a “less bad” response to glucose compared to one unknown product, the lawsuit alleges. 

“This is not what a reasonable person would understand from Nestlé’s representations that the Products is [sic] controls and manages glucose, and that it is designed specifically for diabetes,” the suit contends, calling the alleged mislabeling of the BOOST products “prominent and systematic.” 

Per the suit, consumers such as the plaintiffs have purchased Nestlé’s BOOST supplement while relying on the claim that the product is “designed for people with diabetes” and able to effectively control and/or help manage blood sugar. The lawsuit contends that when Nestlé’s glucose claims are viewed “in their totality,” they are “either explicitly or implicitly claiming to prevent disease and/or treat disease,” which serves to make the supplements more attractive to those who wish to lower their risk of diabetes or prediabetes or those who wish to mitigate their diagnosed diabetes or prediabetes. 

The complaint goes on to charge that Nestlé’s claim that BOOST can control blood glucose is ostensibly backed by only a single clinical study wherein the glucose responses of 12 trial participants with type 2 diabetes who drank the supplement were compared with an unidentified “standard oral nutritional supplement.” Per the case, the study was performed by the Nestlé Nutrition Institute, an organization purportedly funded by and/or affiliated with the defendant. 

The lawsuit alleges that the conclusion drawn by the study—that drinking BOOST, in comparison to the unidentified product, helped lower glucose levels—shows at most that Boost leads to a smaller glucose spike than a single, unidentified nutritional drink.

“This is like a winery advertising prominently that its wine controls blood alcohol levels when all the winery can show is that its wine is less bad than tequila,” the complaint analogizes. 

The lawsuit looks to represent consumers in California and New York who bought the Nestle BOOST glucose control products for personal use and not for resale. 

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