See the link below on where to get information to improve your chances of getting what you think you are buying.http://www.clarkhoward.com/news/clark-howard/health-health-care/herbal-supplements-not-all-theyre-cracked-up-to-be/nD6Z/
Friday, April 11, 2014
Clark Howard
Do you take herbal supplements? The sad news is you might not be getting what you pay for.
In a study published in the journal BMC Medicine, Canadian researchers tested 44 bottles of herbal supplements bought in Canada and the United States. A full one-third of the samples tested were adulterated; they did not have any of the key ingredients they promised.
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Here's are some quick highlights of the study's findings:
•Bottles of echinacea supplements contained ground bitter weed, a plant linked to rashes, nausea, and flatulence.
•One bottle of St. John's wort was wholly made of ground rice, while another contained a known laxative called Alexandrian senna. Neither of the 2 bottles tested contained the common active ingredient in St. John's wort called Hypericum perforatum.
•Gingko biloba supplements contained fillers and black walnut, the latter of which could be a potential threat to anyone with a tree nut allergy.
Twenty years ago Congress made a stupid decision to stop overseeing the herbal supplement industry. So now it's essentially the Wild West. You have supposedly legit companies spending heavy marketing dollars and putting garbage in their products.
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New data finds 1 in 5 liver injuries that show up in hospitals have been from dietary supplements, according to The New York Times. This is triple what it was 10 years ago. Some people recover, some do not.
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