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Hair Loss News Archives
September 2006
The Truth About Dietary Supplements
Any late-night TV viewer has doubtlessly seen commercials for herbal remedies
and dietary supplements, each claiming to do everything from inducing weight
loss to increasing women's bust size to causing hair to magically grow on bald
men's heads.
I've always detested these commercials with a passion, since the claims they
make are highly doubtful at best, and most likely baseless lies.
It's apparent
that these supplement and herbal-remedy companies are preying on TV viewers'
insecurities, existing mainly to separate customers from their money.
Last night, it seems the government finally had enough of one of these
herbal-supplement firms. In a sweeping indictment against Ohio-based Berkeley
Premium Nutraceuticals, best known for the male sexual dysfunction product
Enzyte, federal prosecutors accused the company of a host of crimes, including
false advertising, billing customers' credit cards without authorization, and
bank fraud. Ouch!
The supplement industry has been growing rapidly in the U.S. and
internationally. Depending on how you classify "dietary supplements," sales have
reached at least $14 billion in the U.S. Public companies like Martek
Biosciences (Nasdaq: MATK - News), Nutraceutical International (Nasdaq: NUTR -
News), American Oriental Bioengineering (AMEX: AOB - News), and NBTY (Nasdaq:
NTY - News) produce dietary supplements, along with numerous private companies.
Note, however, that companies like Martek are more highly regulated; its
supplements are used in foods given to babies, and it has successfully withstood
FDA review.
The real issue here is not about one possibly corrupt supplement company -- it's
about customers not knowing that the U.S. supplement industry isn't regulated
the way pharmaceutical companies are. The Food and Drug Administration
categorizes dietary supplements as foods, and because of this classification,
only supplements that are proven unsafe are removed or blocked from the market.
Unfortunately, it can sometimes take years for symptoms or signs of an unsafe
supplement to pop up.
The popular weight-lifting supplement Androstenedione (AKA Andro) and Ephedra, a
supplement that Mark McGwire and numerous other athletes have admitted to
taking, are now banned from the market. Both have been linked to heart and other
organ damage in their users. But Ephedra didn't get banned until it was
suspected in association with 155 deaths.
The use of dietary supplements is really a case of balancing consumer choice
against the need to protect the public from unhealthy and unsafe decisions. I'm
not attempting to imply that all supplements are unsafe, nor even most of them.
We simply don't know the long-term safety profiles for many supplements.
Whether or not the government intervenes to halt the sale of some possibly
dangerous supplements, when it comes to your health, buyer beware. Don't assume
that slick magazine or TV ads means that an herbal supplement is safe to use.