Patriot Health Digest
Over two-thirds of Americans consume dietary supplements. Most consumers – 84 percent total – are confident that these products are safe.
You should not be so trusting of supplement makers.
As described in a new article inside the Annals of Pharmacotherapy, consumers are taking risks if they take supplements not verified independently by good outside labs.
4 poisonous ingredients discovered inside supplements during testing
1. Heavy metals, which can cause cancer, dementia and even brittle bones, contaminate numerous diet supplements. One research study found that within 121 products looked at, 5 percent of them had more than the safe amount of arsenic. Two percent had too much lead, cadmium, and aluminum. And 1 percent of them had too much mercury. Back in June of 2019, the FDA seized 300,000 supplement bottles because their pills had excessive lead levels.
2. Fungal and bacterial contamination in supplements is not that uncommon. In one assessment, researchers discovered bacteria in every product of the 138 they checked out. Toxic fungi were also inside many supplements, and many products exceeded the maximum limits set by the U.S. Pharmacopeia. Fungal contamination of diet supplements is linked to serious intestinal, liver and appendix harm.
3. Salmonella. Between 2017-18, dozens of people were hospitalized after suffering from salmonella poisoning which they got after eating kratom, a very addictive natural opioid. Thirty-seven of those kratom products reviewed were contaminated.
4. Drugs. Some supplements had drugs, yet the manufacturers do not reveal that information to consumers. Frequently, the drugs inside are experimental and, in certain cases, removed because they are dangerous. Hundreds of sexual-dysfunction, weight loss and muscle-building products are filled with harmful substances.
The herb you believe you are buying sometimes has little to no active ingredient. And other times, a different herb is substituted.
The consequences for Americans can be shocking. When manufacturers switched out Stephania tetrandra with another herb called Aristolochia fangchi in 2000, over 100 people got severe kidney damage; 18 more got bladder or kidney cancer. Although this herb is now banned in the country, a 2014 investigation discovered that Aristolochia fangchi was in 20 percent of the Chinese herbal products being sold on the internet.
Author: Steven Sinclaire
