Do You Trust Your Herbal Supplement? New Study Says Think Twice

(Oct. 14) -- Americans spend more than $34 billion on natural supplements each year, but the industry's soaring success continues to be marred by troubling studies on what's actually lurking inside the powders, tablets and elixirs.

A newly released analysis of 81 weight-loss supplements, published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, adds more troubling evidence to the spotty track record of herbal remedies.

Researchers found at least one pharmaceutical ingredient in 61 of the products. The biggest problem seems to be sibutramine, an anti-obesity drug once sold in the United States but recently withdrawn because of a link to heart attacks and strokes.

Other supplements contained drugs that have been all-out banned by the Food and Drug Administration, including one of the components of fen-phen and a laxative now believed to cause cancer.

"A wide variety of illicit, weight-reducing agents has been found in proprietary slimming products that are readily available to the public," the study reads. "Importantly, ingestion of these products may result in significant toxicities and even mortality."

Indeed, all of the products tested had been taken by individuals who later wound up in the hospital. One patient later died of poisoning.

Of course, this is hardly the first analysis to issue a scathing review of herbal supplements. In May, a federal report concluded that the vast majority of natural products tested by investigators contained trace amounts of heavy metals, especially lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic.

As the bad news piles up, federal officials are still considering a new food safety bill, which would clamp down on how the products are manufactured, tested and reviewed by FDA inspectors.

The supplement industry, however, would rather see the government enforce existing laws to a greater extent -- rather than create a bevy of new ones.

"The way to get the bad actors out of the industry is by putting more cops on the street, plain and simple," John Gay, executive director of the Natural Products Association, said in a statement.

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