Revelations that the wife of a prominent California congressman died after taking a herbal remedy for diabetes and has spotlighted America’s dietary s Tom McClintock, perished from dehydration and stomach swelling after eating white mulberry leaf, which is widely sold as ‘superfood’ teas and capsules.
The tragedy lifted the lid on a multi-billion dollar industry selling everything from vitamins to botanicals and products for dieting, body-building and boosting sexual performance, aimed at people seeking to improve their health, looks and love lives.
Celebrities have gotten in on the game, with promotions led by everyone from Khloé Kardashian to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and actress — whose DTF capsules sell for $60-a-bottle as a fillip for ‘sexual arousal and desire’.
But the adverse reaction of McClintock and tens of thousands of others each year raises fears about the poor oversight of an industry that often makes bold and unsupported claims about the effectiveness of its pills, potions and powders.
A growing body of evidence suggests that, at best, even basic vitamin pills offer no discernible health benefits. While many other supplements are also placebos, some contain impurities and even hidden medical-grade drugs that do real harm.
Celebrities including Gwyneth Paltrow, Alex Jones, and Khloé Kardashian have promoted supplements in a crowded $37bn industry
‘The majority of supplements that are sold are not going to benefit consumers in ways that they might imagine based on the advertising claims on the bottle,’ Dr Pieter Cohen from the Cambridge Health Alliance told DailyMail.com.
‘Unless you’ve specifically spoken to a doctor about it, the advice is: be careful.’
Nearly nine in ten people take a supplement, The Harris Poll. The number of users grew by 29 percent in the pandemic, as people gobbled up everything from vitamin C to echinacea and turmeric supplements, hoping to boost their immune systems.
Scientists at Northwestern Medicine in June became the latest team to badmouth health supplements. In a monster
Dr. Jeffrey Linder said there was no ‘magic set of pills’ to improve health, branded most products a ‘waste of money’ and urged the health-conscious to focus on tried-and-tested methods like eating well and exercising.
‘If these were really good for you, we’d know by now,’ said Dr. Linder. He offered one key caveat — pregnant women, who should take folic acid and other prenatal vitamins to support the development of their unborn child.
Another mega-study by the University of Sydney in Australia last year evaluated 121 trials of weight loss pills covering 10,000 adults, containing everything from green tea to crab shell extract and ephedra, a stimulant with proclaimed metabolism-accelerating properties.
The vitamins and supplements aisle in a Walgreens pharmacy drugstore in Miami Beach, Florida
Lori McClintock, 61, the wife of Republican Tom McClintock, died from dehydration and stomach inflammation after eating white mulberry leaf, a weight loss supplement
The various pills, powders, and liquids were safe enough for ‘short-term consumption’, said Erica Bessell, a dietician and lead author of the
More worrying, however, is evidence of harmful supplements.
The upcoming issue of Complementary Therapies in Medicine will feature a review of Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicine products that purport to treat colds and flu, several of which were found to contain toxic heavy metals like lead, arsenic and mercury.
University of Miami researchers last month
Dr. Cohen and his colleagues last year
Some contained as many as four experimental stimulants, risking everything from nausea to vomiting, sweating, agitation, palpitations, chest pain and even heart attacks.
Among the products that have been pulled from the shelves in recent years, about two thirds contained pharmaceutical-grade drugs like Viagra and the diet drug Meridia, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Those drugs are effective, but are supposed to be prescribed by a doctor, not slipped into cocktails of compounds and sold, incorrectly labelled, in health food stores or online. Often, ingredients are produced on-the-cheap in China.
Products aimed at amateur athletes have claimed lives — notably the otherwise fit and healthy Claire Squires, who died aged 30 a mile from the finish line of the 2013 London marathon after taking the now-banned Jack3d product, which contained the stimulant DMAA.
American health and nutrition related brand products, General Nutrition Centers, has grown into an international brand, with outlets as far afield as Hong Kong
Supplements marketed for weight loss, bodybuilding and sexual enhancement can often include stimulants and other hidden ingredients that damage health
Such deaths are rare, but worrisome heart palpitations are all too common. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Dietary supplements are loosely regulated by the government’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA), meaning makers do not have to scientifically prove the products they are marketing are safe before consumption.
There are major misconceptions about the industry — 49 percent of adults believe dietary supplements have been assessed as safe and effective by the FDA, and only 47 percent check in with their doctor before taking one, according to The Harris Poll.
While there is regulation, Dr Cohen says the FDA is ‘completely overwhelmed’ and has largely ‘given up’ playing Whack-a-Mole in a growing market increasingly driven by online sales of new products from a changing roster of manufacturers.
The FDA has only issued three product recalls this year, including for Artri Ajo King joint supplements sold in Walmart, which were found to contain the hidden drug diclofenac, a painkiller and anti-inflammatory that can raise the risks of heart attacks and strokes.
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Lawmakers are filling the breach. California’s state legislature last month passed a bill to ban the sale of over-the-counter diet pills and weight-loss supplements to children, noting they were frequently laced with banned laxatives and stimulants.
Prosecutions do occur — Aaron Singerman the founder of Florida sports supplement maker Blackstone Labs was
‘We need a system that stops blatantly illegal products from getting to consumers in the first place, not one that waits for people to get sick and then to slowly creak into action,’ Dr Cohen told DailyMail.com.
Still, Daniel Fabricant, president and CEO of the Natural Products Association, a trade group, advocates for what he calls a ‘very well regulated’ industry, saying the estimated 23,000 emergency room admissions is a roughly 20,000 over count.
Fabricant points to a range of studies showing the effectiveness of products from probiotics to fish oils, fiber supplements and some botanicals. He notes that folic acid is recommended for pregnant women and the needs of an increasingly obese and vitamin-deficient population.
‘Almost 80 percent of the country safely uses a supplement every day,’ Fabricant told DailyMail.com.
‘The biggest reason for use is people eat horribly nowadays with all the demands on their time. We’re overfed and undernourished. There are still food deserts in industrialized countries. Where is the nutrition going to come from?’
Highly concentrated Omega-3 essential fatty acids. The Natural Products Association says fatty acids are among the supplements known to be beneficial to health
