Herbal Supplements Are Often Not What They Seem

..but they don't mention names!

[www.nytimes.com]

Herbal Supplements Are Often Not What They Seem
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR

Americans spend an estimated $5 billion a year on unproven herbal supplements that promise everything from fighting off colds to curbing hot flashes and boosting memory. But now there is a new reason for supplement buyers to beware: DNA tests show that many pills labeled as healing herbs are little more than powdered rice and weeds.

Using a test called DNA barcoding, a kind of genetic fingerprinting that has also been used to help uncover labeling fraud in the commercial seafood industry, Canadian researchers tested 44 bottles of popular supplements sold by 12 companies. They found that many were not what they claimed to be, and that pills labeled as popular herbs were often diluted — or replaced entirely — by cheap fillers like soybean, wheat and rice.

Consumer advocates and scientists say the research provides more evidence that the herbal supplement industry is riddled with questionable practices. Industry representatives argue that any problems are not widespread.

For the study, the researchers selected popular medicinal herbs, and then randomly bought different brands of those products from stores and outlets in Canada and the United States. To avoid singling out any company, they did not disclose any product names.

Among their findings were bottles of echinacea supplements, used by millions of Americans to prevent and treat colds, that contained ground up bitter weed, Parthenium hysterophorus, an invasive plant found in India and Australia that has been linked to rashes, nausea and flatulence.

Two bottles labeled as St. John’s wort, which studies have shown may treat mild depression, contained none of the medicinal herb. Instead, the pills in one bottle were made of nothing but rice, and another bottle contained only Alexandrian senna, an Egyptian yellow shrub that is a powerful laxative. Gingko biloba supplements, promoted as memory enhancers, were mixed with fillers and black walnut, a potentially deadly hazard for people with nut allergies.

Of 44 herbal supplements tested, one-third showed outright substitution, meaning there was no trace of the plant advertised on the bottle — only another plant in its place.

Many were adulterated with ingredients not listed on the label, like rice, soybean and wheat, which are used as fillers.

In some cases, these fillers were the only plant detected in the bottle — a health concern for people with allergies or those seeking gluten-free products, said the study’s lead author, Steven G. Newmaster, a biology professor and botanical director of the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario at the University of Guelph.

The findings, published in the journal BMC Medicine, follow a number of smaller studies conducted in recent years that have suggested a sizable percentage of herbal products are not what they purport to be. But because the latest findings are backed by DNA testing, they offer perhaps the most credible evidence to date of adulteration, contamination and mislabeling in the medicinal supplement industry, a rapidly growing area of alternative medicine that includes an estimated 29,000 herbal products and substances sold throughout North America.

“This suggests that the problems are widespread and that quality control for many companies, whether through ignorance, incompetence or dishonesty, is unacceptable,” said David Schardt, a senior nutritionist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group. “Given these results, it’s hard to recommend any herbal supplements to consumers.”

Representatives of the supplement industry said that while mislabeling of supplements was a legitimate concern, they did not believe it reached the extent suggested by the new research.

Stefan Gafner, the chief science officer at the American Botanical Council, a nonprofit group that promotes the use of herbal supplements, said the study was flawed, in part because the bar-coding technology it used could not always identify herbs that have been purified and highly processed.

“Over all, I would agree that quality control is an issue in the herbal industry,” Dr. Gafner said. “But I think that what’s represented here is overblown. I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks according to this study.”

The Food and Drug Administration has used bar-coding technology to warn and in some cases prosecute sellers of seafood found to be “misbranded.” The DNA technique has also been used in studies of herbal teas, which showed that a significant percentage contain herbs and ingredients that are not listed on their labels.

But policing the supplement industry is a special challenge. The F.D.A. requires that companies test the products they sell to make sure that they are safe. But the system essentially operates on the honor code. Unlike prescription drugs, supplements are generally considered safe until proved otherwise.

Under a 1994 federal law, they can be sold and marketed with little regulatory oversight, and they are pulled from shelves generally only after complaints of serious injury. The F.D.A. audits a small number of companies, but even industry representatives say more oversight is needed.

“The regulations are very appropriate and rigorous,” said Duffy MacKay of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a supplement industry trade group. “But we need a strong regulator enforcing the full force of the law. F.D.A. resources are limited, and therefore enforcement has not historically been as rigorous as it could be.”

An F.D.A. spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.

DNA bar coding was developed about a decade ago at the University of Guelph. Instead of sequencing entire genomes, scientists realized that they could examine genes from a standardized region of every genome to identify species of plants and animals. These short sequences can be quickly analyzed — much like the bar codes on the items at a supermarket — and compared with others in an electronic database. An electronic reference library at Guelph called the International Barcode of Life Project, contains over 2.6 million bar code records for almost 200,000 species of plants and animals.

The testing technique is not foolproof. It can identify the substances in a supplement, but it cannot determine their potency. And because the technology relies on the detection of DNA, it may not be able to identify concentrated chemical extracts that do not contain genetic material, or products in which the material has been destroyed by heat and processing.

But Dr. Newmaster emphasized that only powders and pills were used in the new research, not extracts. In addition, the DNA testing nearly always detected some plant material in the samples —just not always the plant or herb named on the label.

Some of the adulteration problems may be inadvertent. Cross-contamination can occur in fields where different plants are grown side by side and picked at the same time, or in factories where the herbs are packaged. Dr. Gafner of the American Botanical Council said that rice, starch and other compounds were sometimes added during processing to keep powdered herbs from clumping, just as kernels of rice are added to salt shakers.

But that does not explain many of the DNA results. For instance, the study found that one product advertised as black cohosh — a North American plant and popular remedy for hot flashes and other menopause symptoms — actually contained a related Asian plant, Actaea asiatica, that can be toxic to humans.

Those findings mirror a similar study of black cohosh supplements conducted at Stony Brook University medical center last year. Dr. David A. Baker, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive medicine, bought 36 black cohosh supplements from online and chain stores. Bar coding tests showed that a quarter of them were not black cohosh, but instead contained an ornamental plant from China.

Dr. Baker called the state of supplement regulation “the Wild West,” and said most consumers had no idea how few safeguards were in place. “If you had a child who was sick and 3 out of 10 penicillin pills were fake, everybody would be up in arms,” Dr. Baker said. “But it’s O.K. to buy a supplement where 3 out of 10 pills are fake. I don’t understand it. Why does this industry get away with that?”

There seems to be fraud in every industry. I wish, if they stand behind their study, they would disclose the names of the companies.

They probably didn't want to get sued

IMHO, the supplement industry needs to start wearing "big boy" pants and self-regulate before government steps in. Claims need to be backed up with studies, however limited, and there should be an independent industry-funded inspection and regulation system put in place.

Independent testing of supplements identifies brands

Karen

" and regulation system put in place."

Hopefully not by the stupid "government"

Below is a link posted by Jackie recently regarding a proposed bill to regulate supplements. Although the above indicates a need for regulation, I agree that the stupid government should not get more involved. It seems the FDA is already involved and we can see how that's working. I agree with industry regulation, but oppose this bill.

[secure3.convio.net]

Louise

Independent testing is done but several reputable organizations, one example is Consumer Laboratories which does a decent job of highlighting those relatively few supplement makers who do not meet the standards of what is claimed on their own labels.

The relatively small price to pay for the huge advantages of avoiding the stifling and killing effect of over regulation of the supplement industry is that the consumer has to take the effort to educate themselves and learn which companies used GMP and pharmaceutical quality control in their supply chain and entire production process and only choose supplements from this self-regulating dedicated companies to providing good products.

There are many of these quality supplement companies and I have yet to see any independent testing organization that has found any gross errors in the products tested from any of these well-known and reputable companies.

The truth is this, NOT ONE fatality has been reported and verified from all US emergency rooms and hospitals as being directly caused or instigated by a patient taking a nutritional supplement over the last decade of data collection (up through 2011).

If this report above was also truly independent and unbiased then they should have named not only those products that tested as fraudulent or perhaps unknowingly contaminated ,.. and Im sure there are some no doubt in the all herbal side of the industry especially from overseas based companies with questionable supple chains .... but if this was anything more than another attempt to damn the entire industry by painting every herbal company with the same broad and very unfair brush, they should have also publish the names of the products and companies that passed muster.,

In addition, there is real debate on the full implication of DNA stamping of these products as well. I would like to see some of these same products that apparently didn't pass the DNA scans to go through rigorous biochemical analysis as well and see just what the actual biochemical content of those products really is.

How many of them might actually pose a danger and how many were more or less just inert fillers would be worthwhile to know. Of course, those that do pose a possible danger and that do not contain the labeled amount of the bioactive herbal extract that is claimed, should be exposed and called on the carpet!

Greater self-policing by the overall supplement industry does go on, but should be expanded as well. Nevertheless, there is a balance between maintaining easy access to a broad range of potentially very valuable supplements made by reputable firms that comply with accepted Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) as well as pharmaceutical quality control production processes., and then opening pandoras box to FDA regulation and force many supplement makers to either dramatically raise their prices or sell out to Big Pharma who is more than happy to take over the supplement supply industry and would greatly limit the type of and potency of supplements that are available.

Big Pharma and FDA have for decades run a very expensive all out war on the supplement industry and hire shills like Paul Offit who is nothing more than a hired gun mouth piece for Big Pharma and the AMA agenda on anything they view as even mildly threatening to their sanctioned and accepted tool kit.

Paul Offits new book which I read as well, shows that he has learned out to more diplomatically couch his absolute bias, and starts by conveying an air of common sense by selecting a number of examples of what he calls 'alternative' medicine that didn't work nearly as advertize. Almost all of these examples used were dealing with either obvious flakes peddling unrealistic 'cures' that no serious person involved in functional medicine would ever consider supporting.

The whole Laetrile exercise and a few others that do not in any way define what solid integrative medicine is all about now in any event, are just more disingenuous attempts to damn anything other than AMD/FDA approved methods with the same far too broad brush and thereby throw all teh many perfectly good babies out with the bathwater he feels defines anything other than his niche of the world.

His whole treatment of vitamins is utterly laughable, and is so amatuerish and obvious that he is only cherry picking select studies that were largely designed for failure from the outset. And though he tries hard to ignore the mountain of solid research that strongly supports nutritional therapy, indeed he clearly doesn't even go there at all. Yet the few instance where he grudgingly acknowledges a therapeutic effect, his handy catch all excuse for that effect must be 'placebo' in all cases.

The reason why, because there haven't been the kind of randomized controlled trials of large enough size to convince him the benefit is real... a real catch-22 if you want to stay in the dark ... because trial of that scope and scale are not going to be don't on no patentable natural substances!

But just because those trials have not been done, at least to the satisfaction of Paul Offit, in no way implies the supplement in question is useless and has no benefit as he would want you to assume.

He tries to establish his trust and legitimacy with the reader be recounting a number of well known failures in the very broad canvas he covers everything he isnt familiar with under. These are cases even the most ardent nutritionally oriented integrative MDs would agree whole heartedly were bad medicine, and some is outright fraud.

But they have no association or relationship to high quality nutritional and functional medicine practiced by thousands of skilled and thoughful MDs around the US and the world, even though he tries to condemn it all as guilt by his far too broad and inappropriate associations.

When Offit warns that Chiropractors can injure some patients, so avoid them at all cost, and that some people have gotten infections or organ injury by acupuncture needles, these are no doubt true. Its like anything else in health care, be careful which practitioner you choose! I know of people who have had their mitral valves ripped out by a poorly skilled ablationists catheter too, and surgeons all across the county kill thousands of people very year with screw ups! So what is his point?

If he could find even a modicum of balance in his agenda, then the few things we can all agree on in his thesis would be better received. But Offit is a died in the wool crusader against anything he is unfamiliar with and didn't learn about in medical school and that he is encouraged by Big Pharma and the AMA to try and undermine if he can.

I do agree wholeheartedly with Offits statement that there is no alternative or regular medicine, there is just medicine that works and medicine that doesnt work.

But his failure to recognize and acknowledge really any significant value from any nutritional protocols, reveals his real agenda and deep seated bias that makes his book a highly misleading read.

Shannon

Rebuttal of Paul Offit's NY Times editorial



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2013 04:54PM by Shannon.

Shannon:

I do know that taking some vitamins can make one sick---at one time I was taking beta-carotene, I started getting many aura migraines ( I am prone to them, however, I would only get the aura once in a great while), I didn't know what was causing my aura migraines, which I was getting everyday and really feeling sick. I finally figured out that the beta-carotene might be causing them and I quit the supplement, the aura migraines stopped. I also took Iodoral (iodine) I did take it for a few years and I think I was taking too much because I started getting hives and flushing of my face, which quit when I stopped the Iodoral. I also took Boron (32 mg.), the Boron and Iodoral were prescribed by Dr. Brownstein, the boron made me sick also, the mg. was too high.

People take a lot of potassium supplements, I too tried Potassium, I got runs of AF, quit that and the runs of AF stopped. I still take some supplements but I watch for any adverse reactions, I don't think supplements are benign, I try to get a lot of my vitamins from food, I realize that some vitamins just leave your body and generally cause no harm and some are needed and helpful like magnesium. My daughter went to a Holistic doc. who ran tests to determine what vitamins she was low in and needed, perhaps that is what should be done.

Liz

America's "war on drugs" is clearly directed at the wrong enemy!

Prescription drugs are now killing far more people than illegal drugs, and while most major causes of preventable deaths are declining, those from prescription drug use are increasing, an analysis of recently released data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by the Los Angeles Times revealed.

The Times analysis of 2009 death statistics, the most recent available, showed:

For the first time ever in the US, more people were killed by drugs than motor vehicle accidents
37,485 people died from drugs, a rate fueled by overdoses on prescription pain and anxiety medications, versus 36,284 from traffic accidents
Drug fatalities more than doubled among teens and young adults between 2000 and 2008, and more than tripled among people aged 50 to 69
Again, these drug-induced fatalities are not being driven by illegal street drugs; the analysis found that the most commonly abused prescription drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma now cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.

'Pharmageddon' Is Upon Us

Pharmageddon1 is "the prospect of a world in which medicines and medicine produce more ill-health than health, and when medical progress does more harm than good" -- and it is no longer a prospect but fully upon us. Those most at risk from dying from this new drug crisis are people you would least expect; the analysis revealed the death toll is highest among people in their 40s, but all ages, from teenagers to the elderly, and all walks of life are being affected. In fact, prescription drugs are now the preferred "high" for many, especially teens, as they are typically used legally, which eliminates the stigma of being a "junkie."

And even if you don't have your own prescription, drugs of all kinds can be found in the nearest medicine cabinet in most homes.

Yet, these drugs are also now being sold on the black market and on street corners, where people who have run out of prescriptions are willing to pay upwards of $80 a pill to get their fix.

Many become addicted after using the drugs for headaches or back pain, and teens are increasingly taking the pills from their parents to use recreationally, under the false assumption that they are not dangerous.

As written in the Baltimore Sun:2

"According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, prescription drugs are second to marijuana as the drug of choice for today's teens. In fact, seven of the top 10 drugs used by 12th-graders were prescription drugs.

More than 40 percent of high school seniors reported that painkillers are 'fairly' or 'very' easy to get. They also reported that they believed that if they were to get caught, there was less shame attached to the use of prescription drugs than to street drugs. This mirrors the perceptions of their parents, who when queried said that they felt prescription drugs were a safer alternative to drugs typically sold by a drug dealer."

How Many Are Dying From Prescription Drugs?

Nearly 20 percent of Americans have used prescription drugs for non-medicinal reasons, three-quarters of whom may be abusing them. Legal prescription drug abuse is a silent epidemic, and is part of the reason why the modern American medical system has become the leading cause of death and injury in the United States. Authored in two parts by Gary Null, PhD, Carolyn Dean, MD ND, Martin Feldman, MD, Debora Rasio, MD, and Dorothy Smith, PhD, the comprehensive Death by Medicine article described in excruciating detail how everything from medical errors to adverse drug reactions to unnecessary procedures caused more harm than good.

Seven years after the original article was written, an analysis in the New England Journal of Medicine3 on November 25, 2010 piqued my interest -- the researchers found that, despite efforts to improve patient safety in the past few years, the health care system hasn't changed much at all. So, earlier this year, I updated the original Death by Medicine article, which, unfortunately, shows more of the same:

In a June 2010 report in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, study authors said that in looking over records4 that spanned from 1976 to 2006 (the most recent year available) they found that, of 62 million death certificates, almost a quarter-million deaths were coded as having occurred in a hospital setting due to medication errors.
An estimated 450,000 preventable medication-related adverse events occur in the U.S. every year.
The costs of adverse drug reactions5 to society are more than $136 billion annually -- greater than the total cost of cardiovascular or diabetic care.
Adverse drug reactions cause injuries or death in one of five hospital patients.
The reason there are so many adverse drug events in the U.S.6 is that so many drugs are used and prescribed – and many patients receive multiple prescriptions at varying strengths, some of which may counteract each other or cause more severe reactions when combined.
There are numerous repercussions to a society that eats, breathes, and sleeps prescription medications, not the least of which is its impact on children. Between 2001 and 2008, there was a 36 percent increase in hospital admissions,7 and a 28 percent increase in emergency room visits, among children age five and younger who had accidentally ingested medication. ER visits for ingestion of prescription opioid painkillers, such as Oxycodone, increased 101 percent!

And in 2009, there were nearly 4.6 million drug-related visits to U.S. emergency rooms nationwide,8 with more than half due to adverse reactions to prescription medications – most of which were being taken exactly as prescribed.9 When you add in the growing numbers of people who are using these drugs recreationally or due to addiction, you begin to see the magnitude of the problem that the pharmaceutical industry is propagating

Unfortunately, this problem is now seriously impacting the next generation. When you were a teenager you may have snuck a beer or two at a party… nowadays teens will mix a variety of prescription pills together in a bowl and take a mouthful of them like candy! The kids think this is a safe way to get high, since they see their parents taking the same medications all the time, but it often turns out to be a literal prescription for disaster that can even be deadly.

The Real Thugs of the Drug World

The "war on drugs" has focused nearly exclusively on the illegal trafficking of drugs like cocaine, heroin, and marijuana, while the most powerful drug dealers of all -- the pharmaceutical companies -- are allowed to grow their businesses with the U.S. government's gold seal of approval.

But make no mistake – the leading pharmaceutical companies are also among the largest corporate criminals in the world, and they are really nothing more than white-collar drug dealers.

Although many fail to realize this, prescription drugs can be just as addictive as illegal drugs. In fact, in many cases there's no difference between a street drug and a prescription drug. For example, hydrocodone, a prescription opiate, is synthetic heroin. It's indistinguishable from any other heroine as far as your brain and body is concerned. So, if you're hooked on hydrocodone, you are in fact a good-old-fashioned heroin addict

But aside from the nature of their business, fraud, kickbacks, price-setting, bribery, and illegal sales activities are all par for the course for big-name drug companies. Last year I set out to investigate some of the criminal activities that some of the largest pharmaceutical companies had been convicted of lately, and the amount of gross misconduct, fraud and deceit I found was so insidious, so massive, and so overwhelming that it shocked even me.

You can read the grim details in full on the article, but here is just a sampling of what the top drug companies are up to:

Merck: With a long list of deaths to its credit, and more than $5.5 billion in judgments and fines levied against it, it was five years before Merck made its $30-billion recall of the painkiller Vioxx that I warned my readers that it might be a real killer for some people. After the drug was withdrawn, and 60,000 had already died, Merck picked up the pieces painlessly by getting a new drug fast-tracked and on the market.

That drug is Gardasil, a vaccine that so far has been linked to thousands of adverse events and at least 49 unexplained deaths. It's a situation that the FDA and CDC have been denying repeatedly, keeping their heads buried in the sand even as the adverse reports mount.

Baxter: Dozens of recalls of products that caused deaths and injuries, at least 11 different guilty pleas to fraud and illegal sales activity, more than 200 lawsuits – many of them stemming from selling AIDS-tainted blood to hemophiliacs – and more than $1.3 billion in criminal fines and civil penalties.
Pfizer: In the largest health care fraud settlement in history, Pfizer was ordered to pay $2.3 billion to resolve criminal and civil allegations that the company illegally promoted uses of four of its drugs, including the painkiller Bextra, the antipsychotic Geodon, the antibiotic Zyvox, and the anti-epileptic Lyrica.
How Can You Avoid Being Killed by a Prescription Drug?

There is a risk of side effects every time you take a prescription drug. No one (except for those who intentionally overdose) expects these medications to kill them, but they can do just that, and it happens far more often than you might think! In a study recently released by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA),10 officials emphasized that people should not assume there's no risk in prescribed medicines. The truth is, the only way to avoid all risk, including death, from prescription drugs is to not take them at all.

It is your body, not your doctor's and not your pharmacist's, so it is up to you to make the decision of what drugs to take, if any. Be SURE you are aware of the risks of any medication prescribed to you, and weigh them against any possible benefit. Then you can make a well-informed decision of whether it's a risk you're willing to take.

Of course, of paramount importance is also taking control of your health so you can stay well naturally, without the use of drugs or even frequent conventional medical care. If you adhere to a healthy lifestyle, you most likely will never need medications in the first place. This includes:

Proper Food Choices

For a comprehensive guide on which foods to eat and which to avoid, see my nutrition plan. Generally speaking, you should be looking to focus your diet on whole, unprocessed foods (vegetables, meats, raw dairy, nuts, and so forth) that come from healthy, sustainable, local sources, such as a small organic farm not far from your home.

For the best nutrition and health benefits, you will want to eat a good portion of your food raw. Personally, I aim to eat about 80-85 percent of my food raw, including raw eggs and humanely raised organic animal products that have not been raised on a CAFO (confined animal feeding operation).

Nearly as important as knowing which foods to eat more of is knowing which foods to avoid, and topping the list is fructose. Sugar, and fructose in particular, acts as a toxin in and of itself, and as such drive multiple disease processes in your body, not the least of which is insulin resistance, a major cause of accelerated aging.

Comprehensive Exercise Program, including High-Intensity Exercise like Peak Fitness

Even if you're eating the healthiest diet in the world, you still need to exercise to reach the highest levels of health, and you need to be exercising effectively, which means including not only core-strengthening exercises, strength training, and stretching but also high-intensity activities into your rotation. High-intensity interval-type training boosts human growth hormone (HGH) production, which is essential for optimal health, strength and vigor. I've discussed the importance of Peak Fitness for your health on numerous occasions.

Stress Reduction and Positive Thinking

You cannot be optimally healthy if you avoid addressing the emotional component of your health and longevity, as your emotional state plays a role in nearly every physical disease -- from heart disease and depression, to arthritis and cancer. Effective coping mechanisms are a major longevity-promoting factor in part because stress has a direct impact on inflammation, which in turn underlies many of the chronic diseases that kill people prematurely every day. Meditation, prayer, social support, and exercise are all viable options that can help you maintain emotional and mental equilibrium.

Proper Sun Exposure to Optimize Vitamin D

We have long known that it is best to get your vitamin D from sun exposure, and if at all possible, I strongly urge you to make sure you're getting out in the sun on a daily basis. There is preliminary evidence suggesting that oral vitamin D may not provide the identical benefits, although it's still better than none at all.

Just keep in mind that it's really best to get ALL your vitamin D from the sun. It appears that vitamin D plays a crucial role in sulfur metabolism11 and when you swallow it orally it may not have the same benefit as getting it from the sun.

Take High-Quality Animal-Based Omega-3 Fats

Animal-based omega-3 fat is a strong factor in helping people live longer, and many experts believe that it is likely the predominant reason why the Japanese are the longest-lived race on the planet.

Avoid as Many Chemicals, Toxins, and Pollutants as Possible

This includes tossing out your toxic household cleaners, soaps, personal hygiene products, air fresheners, bug sprays, lawn pesticides, and insecticides, just to name a few, and replacing them with non-toxic alternatives.