Category Archives: Food Supplements

JoAnne Viviano The Columbus Dispatch @JoAnneViviano

Hold on to your Red Bull.

Researchers are calling on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate caffeine-based energy products along with yohimbe, a botanical marketed for male sexual enhancement, after a recent study showed that children taking the supplements often had serious adverse reactions.

The findings are part of a study that examined dietary supplements by reviewing 13 years of calls to poison-control centers in the U.S. and its territories. Centers received about 275,000 calls about supplements during the time period, an average of 58 per day. Thirty-four children died.

While both the energy supplements and yohimbe were responsible for only a small percentage of the calls, both were associated with "considerable toxicity," including one death each, says the study from researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital, Ohio State University, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and the Child Injury Prevention Alliance. Cultural medicines, such as traditional Asian or Latino medicines,also caused a high number of serious outcomes.

Many people erroneously believe that dietary supplements are already regulated by the FDA, saidHenry Spiller, director of the Central Ohio Poison Center at Nationwide Childrens Hospital and one of the study authors.

"They were pulled out of the purview of the FDA in the '90s," he explained. "The FDA can only regulate them if they find them to be dangerous, but they do not look at purity, safety efficacy."

None of that happens, he said. Instead, it's "consumer beware."

The study, published last week in the Journal of Medical Toxicology, examined calls to poison-control centers from 2000 to 2012.

Seventy percent of exposures involved children younger than 6; however, 95 percent of the serious medical outcomes were among the 6-or-older group. Of all exposures, 83 percent were unintentional.

For the children younger than 6, only about 9 percent of exposures resulted in the child being taken to a health-care facility, compared with about half of the exposures among the older children.

The most-common problems for kids who took supplements were rapid heartbeat, vomiting, nausea, irritability, drowsiness and dizziness.

Of the deaths, three were children younger than 6, and 31 were 6 or older.

Overall, exposures increased from 2000 to 2002, decreased from 2002 to 2005 and jumped again from 2005 to 2012. Researchers say the 2002-2005 drop is, in part, due to a decrease, beginning in 2002, in exposures to the stimulant ma huang, also known as ephedra, which was banned by the FDA in 2004.

The drop in ma huang exposures shows that FDA intervention makes a difference, Spiller said.

"The FDA took action on it, and you could see a significant drop," he said "That's somewhat reassuring."

Spiller said the study also showed that adults using supplements should keep them out of reach of young hands.

"A lot of kids get into these," he said. "They dont come with child-resistant closures."

When it comes to older kids, Jessica Buschmann, a clinical dietitian in the sports medicine department at Nationwide Childrens Hospital, said she sees a lot of adolescents turning to energy drinks. She never advises their use under any circumstances. Some other supplements might be OK, but parents and youngsters need to do their homework.

Before starting a supplement, they should be thinking about the overall quality of their diet, said Buschmann, who was not involved in the study.They also should consider whether they are getting enough sleep, exercise and hydration before trying to take a shortcut."

I dont want my athletes relying on supplements for their nutrition. I want their nutritional needs to come from good-quality food, not supplements, Buschmann said.

She also advised discussing any supplements with a medical professional and making sure they are third-party tested and safe for consumption.

jviviano@dispatch.com

@JoAnneViviano

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Dietary supplements, energy drinks need FDA regulation, researchers say - The Columbus Dispatch

I recently interviewed Catherine Price, author of Vitamania: How Vitamins Revolutionized the Way We Think About Food. The book is a habit-altering romp through the seemingly banal topic of vitamins.

Price got the idea for her book when her husband asked her the question, Whats a vitamin? and Price found that she didnt have an answer. Vitamins, to spare you the suspense, are organic compounds that we tend to come across in foodand without which we would die. There are 13 human vitamins: A, C, D, E, K and seven B vitamins (thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), pantothenic acid (B5), pyroxidine (B6), biotin (B7), folate (B9) and cobalamin (B12)). But if that was all Vitamania was about, it would have made for a short book. Instead Price explores how the discovery of vitamins has shaped our diet, and our perspective on health.

Although the book was published in 2015, it couldnt feel more relevant today. From Gwyneth Paltrow to Alex Jones of Info Wars, it seems like everyone is promising that vitamins and their creepy alter ego, supplementscan soothe what ails us. Supplements are now a multi-billion-dollar industry that many say will continue to grow. But we're not getting any healthier. Last year, U.S. life expectancy declined for the first time since 1993. How did we become a vitamin and supplement obsessed society, and why isn't that keeping us from getting sick?

Price has a few ideasand a few warnings to keep in mind the next time you're staring down an aisle of supplements.

The following Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

The most definitive thing we know is how much you need not to die. I think some researchers would argue its more nuanced than that, but from a consumer perspective thats really what it boils down to.

The RDA is like the government trying to create a sweater that would fit 97 out of every 100 Americans. If you try to do that, you'd end up with a very large sweater that 97 out of 100 people could fit into. But that does not mean its the correct size for everyone. There's 96 out of 100 people who could fit into a smaller sweater.

And, for the most part, the current recommendations are based on the highest recommendations from 1968. The FDA has not updated the recommendations that the daily values are based on. They're supposed to be updated, but that's probably going to get delayed until at least 2020.

For the next couple of years, when you lookat the percent daily value for vitamins and minerals on the back of a food or a supplement, that is based off of very outdated recommendations. You shouldn't be aiming for 100 percent.

If it werent for synthetic vitamins, we would not be able to eat the way we today without getting horrible vitamin deficiencies. When were first able to synthesize vitamins in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, that really changed the kind of products that we were able to make. You had the processed food industry really start to take off, combined with this ability to put back nutrients that the processing had removed.

Breakfast cereal is one of the most egregious examples of this, because youre essentially eating a multivitamin. They have vitamins incorporated into the dough, or, depending on what the vitamin is, some of them are actually sprayed on. It really is just like dust on top of your otherwise nutritionally vapid corn flake, and they call it a healthy start to your day.

When you've got a houseplant and you know that it needs water to survive, you may pour a gallon of water on it thinking it will just use what it needs and the rest will just pour out of the bottom of the pot. But the houseplants roots can get rotten, or they could grow a fungus, or there could be some other harm that's caused by the excess water.

People say Americans have the most expensive urine in the world, because we take all of these vitamins and it's no problemwe're just peeing them out. But a couple of years ago, a woman killed herself by drinking too much water. If you can kill yourself drinking water, that's a warning that just because you need something in a certain amount doesnt mean that you can keep taking it ad infinitum, or that it will do something good for you.Its possible that were triggering diseases that take a long time to develop, but that are a result of being saturated with vitamins all of the time.

I think the poor feedback loop is also true for dietary supplements, which are not vitamins, because people take all sorts of crazy s**t. There are more than 85,000 supplements on the market in America, and one may not do anything bad to you immediately. But it could be that you have a daily dietary supplement habit and over years some kind of side effect develops. And then 15 years later you have a health problem and you dont know its because of this product you were taking.

Supplements are regulated, but not in the way that you or I as consumers would ever think that they would be regulated. Theyre regulated under The Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act, which the industry helped to get passed. The law forbade the FDA from requiring that supplement manufacturers have to prove that their products are safe or effective before selling them.

If you think about it, its totally nuts. You should have some assurance that whats sold on the shelf as a health product isn't going to hurt you, and ideally is going to do what it says it's going to do.

Some products that are advertised as dietary supplements are clearly substances that the average consumer would think would be a food. Like, some teas are dietary supplements instead of a food. And the reason is because there was less regulation if it was a dietary supplement then if it was a food.

If you bought a loaf of bread and it turned out it was actually a dozen eggs inside the package you'd probably complain. But the equivalent can and does happen pretty frequently with dietary supplements. A consumer went to buy a multivitamin and the bottle had penne pasta in it, which is an extreme version of not being able to predict what you'll get.But more often, pretty dangerous stuff is snuck into dietary supplements like illegal prescription drugs.

"And definitely stay clear of sexual enhancement, body building, and weight loss. Those are the three categories that are adulterated the most with truly dangerous substances."

It's extremely difficult, if not impossible from a consumer's perspective to know for sure what's in their products. If youre going to buy them, definitely do research on which brands have been tested, and stick with the bigger brands.And definitely stay clear of sexual enhancement, body building, and weight loss. Those are the three categories that are adulterated the most with truly dangerous substances.

Even with vitamins, there are issues where they put overages into the vitamins or more of a vitamin than they say is on the label. They want to make sure that by the time you buy it, it has the dose it says. But they've had issues where that's resulted in there being too much vitamin A, which can be toxic.

The best I can say is go to one of several websites where they're actually testing things. The best one, in my mind, is ConsumerLab.com, which requires a subscription. You get a really good breakdown of what the research is and what it does and doesn't show, and has products pulled off the shelf that are testednot paid for by industry.

But it's kind of crazy that you have to send somebody to a subscription-based website to get a true answer as to whether or not the product that they just spent 50 dollars on actually is what it says it is.

I never really did go down that route. But I have, as an experiment for the book, gone into a supplement shop and said, I have diabetes, what can you give me?

They arent supposed to give you advice, because that's medical advice. But they always have a whole selection of these various herbs and concoctions that are supposed to be helpful for blood sugar, which is dangerous. If a supplement product makes your blood sugar go very low or interferes with any of your medication, you could die.

Some of these things probably do have an effect on your blood sugar, so it's scary to think that there's no scientific evidence of what dose does what. There's no guarantee of concentration in what you're buying. There's no warning about how it can interact with anything.

Something that we don't recognize as consumers is how these 13 chemicalsand the way that they were marketed in the early part of the 20th centurycompletely revolutionized the way we think about food today.

They are miraculous because we need them to prevent diseases, but that was really taken advantage of by food marketers and the dietary supplement industry. Thy applied it to a much wider array of productsincluding not just pills, but also foods. I think you really start to see that in the 60s and the 70s with the natural food movement, and then when you fast forward to today you still see it in every single food trend that we have. It's the way we think about food.

Michael Pollan (the author of Omnivores Dilemma) was the first person to really enunciate this in an eloquent way, but the reductionism that we use when we think about food is very remarkable and very, very, American. We don't think, is this bread delicious for my sandwich? We think about how many nuts and seeds it has, and that flax seed has omega 3 fatty acids in it and omega 3 fatty acids are supposed to be healthy because they're advertised on everything.

We basically break food down into components, and then we think about what effects those particular components are supposed to have on our health. We try to turn our meals into these nutritional math problems. And it leaves us so susceptible to things like the GOOP vitamins, or the idea that InfoWars is somehow going to be able to help our health.

The main vitamin manufacturers didn't really want to talk about where their production facilities are, but apart from like, a beta carotene manufacturer in Texas, there's basically no vitamin manufacturing plants in America. When you say, vitamin manufacturing people think of the pills, and obviously, theres thousands of places making vitamins in the states and hundreds of thousands around the world. But I'm talking about the raw ingredients for the pills and those are coming from other places in the world, particularly China.

Going back to what we were talking about before where it would be impossible for Americans to eat the way that we do without the help of synthetic vitamins, its interesting as a thought experiment to ask yourself, if someone really wanted to do a particularly clever kind of war against us, they could cut off or somehow adulterate the supply of synthetic vitamins coming in. It would probably take a while for people to figure out those diseases because we don't see them very often.

The first question people often ask me is, should I take a multivitamin?

And I have no idea if you should take a multivitamin, I don't know what your diet is like, I don't know what medical conditions you have.

People want you to say yes or no, like it's totally always a waste of time or its going to add years to your life. In reality, there's cases where people probably should take a multivitamin, and there's situations where someone is eating a lot of cereal and they're essentially eating a multivitamin every day. They don't need to take a multivitamin, but they could benefit by eating fewer processed foods. We want black and white answers, and there aren't any. We have to learn to be more comfortable with nuance.

And you really should not be thinking about your food in terms of the numbers, or percent of vitamins and minerals that they havebecause that information itself is wrong. When you recognize as a consumer that even the information on the package is not reliable, then you really have to rethink your approach towards eating and come at it at a more holistic way. Just ask, does this food naturally contain a lot of vitamins and minerals? Ok, then that's probably a good way to get my vitamins and minerals. I'm not going to obsess about the particular number of milligrams that it has. I'm just going to eat the orange, or the red pepper.

I think the bottom line is it just points out that nutrition is not a math problem. At least not a math problem that we can solve at this point.

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The three supplements you should never buy - Popular Science

The French national agency ANSES has warned consumers about potential confusion between the drug Lytos and the food supplement Lithos.

The French National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) and the National Agency for Sanitary, Food, Environmental and Occupational Safety (ANSES) reported a high risk of confusion between the two products at pharmacies.

It issued a warning to alert health professionals, patients and consumers of the potential confusion between the drug Lytos by Riemser Pharma GmbH and Lithos - a dietary supplement, marketed by Biohealth Italia.

Lytos is biphosphonate prescribed in some severe cases of hypercalcaemia (increased calcium in the blood), while Lithos is marketed for recovery from high loss of fluid due to excessive sweating, diuresis or diarrhea.

Since the pronunciations of these two products are identical and their writings very similar, confusion and medication errors can easily occur, said ANSES.

The agencies recommended that medical professionals are careful to also use the non-proprietary name (INN) in addition to the trade name when prescribing Lythos, and that any doctors suggesting patients use Lithos make it clear that the prescription is for a food supplement.

They also requested wholesalers and distributors verify which product is being ordered or distributed especially in cases where orders for new products are placed orally or in writing by pharmacies.

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Don't confuse drugs and supplements: French authorities warn - NutraIngredients.com

DUBLIN, August 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Global Dietary Supplements Market 2017-2021" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The global dietary supplements market to grow at a CAGR of 6.52% during the period 2017-2021.

The report, Global Dietary Supplements Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.

The latest trend gaining momentum in the market is the demand for the customized dietary supplements. This trend in the dietary supplements market relates to the personalization of nutrients and food according to the health condition, body type, and age. This trend along with the devices and technology which enable a person to track his/her intake of nutrients are supporting the consumption of the dietary supplements. Personalized wellness at its heart revolves around the consumer empowerment. Consumers now not only have access to more data about themselves than ever but with this data they are empowered to take an active role in the management of their health and wellness. In this way, they are able to track their dietary habits ranging from the foods they eat to the dietary supplements they take and the way they exercise.

According to the report, one of the major drivers for this market is the preventive measures for avoiding lifestyle-related diseases. Lifestyle-related diseases are occurring in the working population with a fast-paced lifestyle and so health consciousness is also rising. This has resulted in the increased intake of supplements to compensate the nutritional gap in the diet. There has been a considerable shift in the lifestyle and diet habits of people over the past two decades. Urbanization and consumerism drove this shift, leading to a rapid rise in the consumption of artificial and synthetic food products. The sedentary lifestyle and lack of balanced diet have resulted in the increased incidences of lifestyle-related diseases such as stroke, heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and atherosclerosis. However, people are becoming aware of these problems and gradually moving toward dietary supplements, which are promoted as being beneficial beyond basic nutrition. These products are purported to provide optimal nutrition and reduce the risk of disease occurrence.

Key vendors

Other prominent vendors

Key Topics Covered:

PART 01: Executive summary

PART 02: Scope of the report

PART 03: Research Methodology

PART 04: Introduction

PART 05: Market landscape

PART 06: Market segmentation by product

PART 07: Market segmentation by distribution channel

PART 08: Geographical segmentation

PART 09: Key leading countries

PART 10: Decision framework

PART 11: Drivers and challenges

PART 12: Market trends

PART 13: Competitor analysis

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/cct4cv/global_dietary

Media Contact:

Laura Wood, Senior Manager rel="nofollow">press@researchandmarkets.com

For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

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Global Dietary Supplements Market to Grow at a CAGR of 6.5% by 2021 - Analysis By Product & Distribution Channel - Markets Insider

Dawn Teer

In a recent American Medical Association newsletter under the Leading the News headline were these three news links on the results of studies on energy supplements such as the ones reported on recently in The Sun Times.

ABC News (7/24) reports on its website that calls to poison control centers in the US caused by exposures to dietary supplements rose by nearly 50 percent between 2005 and 2012, according to a study published in the Journal of Medical Toxicology. The study said that a majority of those calls involved children, and the authors support increased FDA regulation for certain supplements that were associated with high amounts of toxicity.

This is the article in its entirety. A new study found calls to poison control centers in the U.S. due to exposures to dietary supplements rose by nearly 50 percent between 2005 and 2012, and that a majority of those calls involved children being exposed to supplements. The report, published Friday in the Journal of Medical Toxicology, called for an increase in regulation by the Food and Drug Administration for certain supplements that were associated with high amounts of toxicity. Researchers combed through all calls that were made to poison control centers in the U.S. related to dietary supplement exposure between 2000 to 2012, and also found that the majority of supplement exposure calls (70 percent) involved children 6 years old and under. Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC News' Chief Women's Health Correspondent shared some tips on "Good Morning America" today to help keep your children safe from accidental exposures to dietary supplements, advising parents to treat supplements like prescription medicines, and keep them far away from children. She adds that you should never assume that just because something is "natural" that it is safe. Ashton recommends keeping a poison control center phone number handy in your home, and if you do suspect your child has accidentally ingested supplements, to never induce vomiting without speaking to poison control authorities first.

CBS News (7/24, Welch) reports, Seventy percent of the calls involved children younger than 6 years old, and the majority of cases were unintentional, occurring when children swallowed supplements they found at home. Additionally, approximately 4.5 percent of the time more than 12,300 cases serious medical complications occurred. NBC News (7/24, Charles) reports researchers singled out yohimbe tree bark extract as the latest in a long list of dangerous substances that children are accidentally ingesting. It is noted as being particularly dangerous because it had the largest proportion of serious outcome and has been found to cause heart beat rhythm changes and kidney failure in children. Yohimbe is most often used to treat erectile dysfunction in men and low libido in women, even though there is scant evidence that it works. The FDA has received reports of seizures and kidney failure associated with yohimbe consumption.

CNN (7/24, Knight) reports that ma huang, yohimbe, homeopathic agents and energy drinks were found to be the most dangerous supplements.

These stories seem to support the recent stories Jacque Martin has been reporting on in The Sun Times regarding a student who was given an energy product without knowledge or consent from the students parents.

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Dietary supplements linked to more calls to poison control - Arkansas News

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Technavios latest report on the global dietary supplements market provides an analysis of the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook from 2017-2021. Technavio defines an emerging trend as a factor that has the potential to significantly impact the market and contribute to its growth or decline.

The global dietary supplements market is primarily driven by the aging population base and the growing health consciousness among consumers. Other driving forces include the need for preventive measures against sedentary lifestyle-related diseases, lack of nutrition-rich food intake, expensive healthcare costs, adherence to government dietary guidelines, and expansion in the retail space.

This report is available at a USD 1,000 discount for a limited time only: View market snapshot before purchasing

Buy 1 Technavio report and get the second for 50% off. Buy 2 Technavio reports and get the third for free.

The top three emerging trends driving the global dietary supplements market according to Technavio food and beverage research analysts are:

Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report

Technavios sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.

Demand for the customized dietary supplements

Personalized wellness at its heart revolves around the consumer empowerment. Consumers now not only have access to more data about themselves than ever but with this data, they are empowered to take an active role in the management of their health and wellness, says Manjunath Reddy, a lead analyst at Technavio for research on food.

Providing consumers with personalized nutritional supplement recommendations based on their own goals and dietary needs will further aid in market growth. For instance, in place of buying the same multivitamin off the shelf that is sold to people with radically diverse needs, there will now be the ability to provide a highly customized vitamin, one that has been formulated to address the specific needs of the individual.

Growing focus on age-related dietary supplements

A new trend has developed wherein the dietary supplements required at each stage of the life are formulated and marketed. The categories designed according to the age are infants, toddlers and teenagers, adults, middle, and old age people. Most of the offerings are in the category of adults and old aged consumers. The adults section is now further categorized based on the gender and other purposes such as fitness training, pregnant women, and other types, adds Manjunath.

Most of the dietary supplement manufacturers for the adult consumers of the age group 20-40 years offers mainly probiotics and multi-vitamin supplements. While the supplements for 40 years and above often offers dietary supplements that are good for heart health and bone health.

New product type formulations

Innovative products such as gummy bears for adults, launched by various dietary supplements manufacturers, contribute to the consumption of the dietary supplements with attractive features of taste and the ease of consumption.

The conventional product forms such as tablets and capsules are available with new formulations in terms of chewable, which negate the need for water for intake of supplements. The chewable tablets are offered majorly as combination supplements and in flavors for maximum assimilation and absorption.

Increase in strategic alliances and partnerships

Strategic alliances and partnerships characterize the global dietary supplements market. Manufacturers, on one hand, collaborate with raw material suppliers to facilitate uninterrupted supply, while on the other hand, they partner with distributors of the food and beverage companies to ensure a steady market for dietary supplements. New product launches and expansions have also increased prominently.

There has been an emergence of events which has caused the strong competitor base in the dietary supplements industry in the last few years. The companies looking for the worldwide presence to increase their market share and acquire a large and strong consumer base have taken measures and initiatives in this regard. The major strategic alliances were acquisitions, investments, and collaborations.

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Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavios report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavios comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

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Top 4 Emerging Trends Impacting the Global Dietary Supplements Market from 2017-2021: Technavio - Business Wire (press release)

Are you looking for the magic pill for weight loss, increased energy or anything else that ails you? You arent alone. While the draw of dietary supplements is strong and the claims compelling dont be fooled these products are not the same as food. For example, a recent study identified green tea extract as a potentially dangerous ingredient. While sipping on green tea can benefit health, the supplemental form commonly found in weight loss and bodybuilding supplements has been linked to many cases of liver damage. Here are 4 other supplements that are much more dangerous than their food-based counterparts.

Why Supplements Can Be So Dangerous

Unlike foods and medications, the dietary supplement industry has very little FDA oversight. For this reason, many products sold on store shelves and online are manufactured without proper safety testing. These dangers may be the culprit for a dramatic uptick in liver disease over the last decade. Health conscious consumers are rightfully confused. When a nutrient gets attention for its health benefits, its logical to look for more from a supplement, but this can do more harm than good. While there is a time and place for supplements when a true deficiency has been detected, some of the most popular nutrients out there can treat your body very differently when taken in supplement form. The good news is, however, its spectacularly hard to eat your way into toxicity if you stick to the whole food sources.

Red Yeast Rice

Touted for its cholesterol lowering properties, this supplement has made the Consumer Reports list of 15 Supplement Ingredients to Always Avoid. Not only can it negatively affect the action of cholesterol-lowering prescription drugs, it may also affect proper function of the muscles, kidneys and liver.

Iron

Your body relies heavily on iron for healthy blood. According to the National Institutes of Health, populations at risk for deficiency include infants, children, teen girls and both pregnant and pre-menopausal women. Eating iron rich foods like dried fruits, fortified cereals, dark-meat poultry and red meat can help you meet those daily needs, while supplements can be toxic to the liver. For this reason, if you choose to take a supplement monitor blood levels regularly and work with your doctor and registered dietitian to establish a proper supplement dosage.

Vitamin A

This essential nutrient is found in red and orange fruits and veggies as well as milk, cheese and meat. The animal based sources are known as retinol and high doses from supplements can cause skin changes, liver problems and birth defects in pregnant women.

Vitamin B6

Lots of folks reach for B vitamins like B6 to help boost energy and brain function, but the truth is only calories from food will truly give you energy and nutrients the body needs. Large doses of B6 can lead to nerve damage when taken for long periods of time. Since this nutrient may appear in many different supplements, its vitally important to take inventory of all the supplements you are taking. Vitamin B6 can be found in a wide variety of foods including chickpeas, chicken, potatoes, cottage cheese, nuts, raisins, tofu, rice and watermelon.

Dana Angelo White, MS, RD, ATC, is a registered dietitian, certified athletic trainer and owner ofDana White Nutrition, Inc., which specializes in culinary and sports nutrition.

*This article was written and/or reviewed by an independent registered dietitian nutritionist.

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Buyer Beware: The Dangers of Confusing Food with Supplements - Healthy Eats (blog)

By Will ChuWill Chu , 31-Jul-20172017-07-31T00:00:00Z Last updated on 31-Jul-2017 at 12:37 GMT2017-07-31T12:37:05Z

High consumption of tea infusions is a possible long-term concern for human health due to their carcinogenic properties, the European Food and Safety Authority rules.

The consumption of food supplements based on pyrrolizidine alkaloid-producing plants could also result in exposure levels causing short-term toxicity resulting in adverse health effects,stated theEuropean Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

The agency points primarily to the pyrrolizidine alkaloid (PA) content in tea, but also notes that it appears in honey and some dietary food supplements.

Updates to its risk assessment, which now take into account more recent data on exposure levels of these toxins establish a new Reference Point (RP) of 237micrograms per kilogram per body weight per day (g/kg bw/day).

This latest decision falls in line with other findings outlined in 2011, in which EFSA ruled there was a possible health concern for some high consumers of honey such as toddlers and children.

The panel at the time also concluded that 1,2-unsaturated PAs may act as genotoxic carcinogens in humans. An RP of 70 g/kg bw/per day was thus calculated.

In increasing the RP, the report stated that the changemaintains the conservative nature of the previous risk assessment.

This considers the general degree of uncertainty related to the available studies used for the dose response analysis and the fact that both riddelliine and lasiocarpine are classified among the most potent PAs.

Along with riddelliine and lasiocarpine, another PA, monocrotaline was also classified as possibly carcinogenic to humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2008.

The EFSA Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (CONTAM) agreed, identifying a list of 17 PAs in total that required continued observation. These include lasiocarpine, lasiocarpine-N-oxide and senkirkine.

Following a Commission request, EFSAs scientific report, published in August 2016, detailed dietary exposure to PAs through the consumption of honey, tea, and food supplements.

Here, they found the highest average concentrations of PAs consumed were found in the samples of rooibos (lower bound (LB)=4.1g/L) and peppermint (LB=3.5g g/L).

Concentrations of PAs in black tea were twice as high as reported for green tea (LB=1.6g/L and LB=0.8g/L, respectively).

Certain food supplements contained very high levels of PAs. Average PA concentrations of 235253g/kg (LB upper bound (UB)) were reported for pollen-based supplements. Retail honey contained PA concentrations of 14.527.5 g/kg.

Using the RP of 237 g/kg bw per day for the sum of all 1,2-unsaturated PAs, exposure levels were calculated for dietary exposure.

Acute exposure that also accounted for high contamination levels in all food commodities ranged from 1 to 300ng/kg bw per day and from 6 to 170ng/kg bw per day for mean consumers in the younger age classes (infantsadolescents) and adults, respectively.

Acute or short-term exposure to PAs related to the consumption of food supplements varied considerably depending on the type of supplement.

Consumption of PA producing plant extracts to be consumed following infusion led to exposure levels as high as 890ng/kg bw per day.

Ingestion of one tablet/capsule based on PA-producing plants corresponded to estimates of acute/short-term exposure levels of about 800 or 1,800g/kg bw per day.

Acute/short-term exposure through the consumption of pollen-based supplements showed much lower exposure estimates in the range of 344ng/kg bw per day.

In view of the margin of more than three orders of magnitude between these exposure levels and the lowest known dose range associated with human acute/short-term adverse effects, the CONTAM Panel concluded that there is a low risk related to acute dietary exposure to PAs through the consumption of teas, herbal infusions and honey, the report concluded.

Consumption of pollen-based supplements is not considered to pose acute risks to human health, the Panel added.

Originally posted here:

Food supplements and tea subject of EFSA warning on pyrrolizidine alkaloid consumption - NutraIngredients.com

Dawn Teer

In a recent American Medical Association newsletter under the Leading the News headline were these three news links on the results of studies on energy supplements such as the ones reported on recently in The Sun Times.

ABC News (7/24) reports on its website that calls to poison control centers in the US caused by exposures to dietary supplements rose by nearly 50 percent between 2005 and 2012, according to a study published in the Journal of Medical Toxicology. The study said that a majority of those calls involved children, and the authors support increased FDA regulation for certain supplements that were associated with high amounts of toxicity.

This is the article in its entirety. A new study found calls to poison control centers in the U.S. due to exposures to dietary supplements rose by nearly 50 percent between 2005 and 2012, and that a majority of those calls involved children being exposed to supplements. The report, published Friday in the Journal of Medical Toxicology, called for an increase in regulation by the Food and Drug Administration for certain supplements that were associated with high amounts of toxicity. Researchers combed through all calls that were made to poison control centers in the U.S. related to dietary supplement exposure between 2000 to 2012, and also found that the majority of supplement exposure calls (70 percent) involved children 6 years old and under. Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC News' Chief Women's Health Correspondent shared some tips on "Good Morning America" today to help keep your children safe from accidental exposures to dietary supplements, advising parents to treat supplements like prescription medicines, and keep them far away from children. She adds that you should never assume that just because something is "natural" that it is safe. Ashton recommends keeping a poison control center phone number handy in your home, and if you do suspect your child has accidentally ingested supplements, to never induce vomiting without speaking to poison control authorities first.

CBS News (7/24, Welch) reports, Seventy percent of the calls involved children younger than 6 years old, and the majority of cases were unintentional, occurring when children swallowed supplements they found at home. Additionally, approximately 4.5 percent of the time more than 12,300 cases serious medical complications occurred. NBC News (7/24, Charles) reports researchers singled out yohimbe tree bark extract as the latest in a long list of dangerous substances that children are accidentally ingesting. It is noted as being particularly dangerous because it had the largest proportion of serious outcome and has been found to cause heart beat rhythm changes and kidney failure in children. Yohimbe is most often used to treat erectile dysfunction in men and low libido in women, even though there is scant evidence that it works. The FDA has received reports of seizures and kidney failure associated with yohimbe consumption.

CNN (7/24, Knight) reports that ma huang, yohimbe, homeopathic agents and energy drinks were found to be the most dangerous supplements.

These stories seem to support the recent stories Jacque Martin has been reporting on in The Sun Times regarding a student who was given an energy product without knowledge or consent from the students parents.

Read this article:

Dietary supplements linked to more calls to poison control - Heber Springs Sun-Times

BALERNA, Switzerland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--APR Applied Pharma Research s.a. (APR), the Swiss, independent developer of science driven, patent protected healthcare products, is proud to announce the reinforcement of its consumer products portfolio with SwitzAge, an innovative range of nutraceuticals, 100% Swiss made, specifically created to meet adult people well-being needs.

Life expectancy has been globally growing in the last decades thanks to the overall improvement of life quality standards and the so-called Generation X is having a transformative impact on society. By 2050, the number of over 50s worldwide is projected to double to nearly 3.2 billion people. These consumers are transforming what it means to be older in terms of lifestyle and aim for an overall improvement of their vitality, thus being more conscious of their diet and combing it with the consumption of specific food supplements. Asia-Pacific countries, in particular, where adult people account for almost 30% of the population, seem to drive the growth of the global food supplements market with an expected CAGR of 9.1% in the next five years, thus generating nearly half of the whole market, estimated around 84 USD billion, by 2020.

The SwitzAge project has been specifically designed to match the increasing demand for high-quality food supplements tailored on adult people health needs. SwitzAge was inspired from a holistic approach focused on the specific physiological needs of man and lady for a balanced well-being of body and mind along the ageing natural course.

Each SwitzAge product is the result of the Swiss high-quality pharmaceutical research applied to healthy ageing. In particular, products formulations contain a balanced mix of active ingredients - vitamins, minerals and functional extracts, accurately selected and controlled along the production process according to highest Swiss quality standards. On the other side, SwitzAge formulations are compliant with European, Swiss and current Chinese food supplement regulations, thus ensuring a favourable tolerability profile. Moreover, they are lactose, sugar and gluten free and they all come in user-friendly pharmaceutical forms (mono-dose effervescent powder, chewable tablets and soft-gel capsules) for an easier administration, whilst offering the appropriate daily dosage in compliance with European and Swiss NRV recommendations.

SwitzAge product line is currently made of 8 food supplements, that provide the right answers for body and mind enhancement, by improving physical energy extent as well as the overall balance in terms of memory, concentration and sleep quality, along with a proper differentiation per gender. Among the others, the range spans solutions for cardiovascular system efficiency and genitourinary well-being, for men, as well as for menopause hormonal swing regulation and skin anti-ageing for ladies.

"We are very proud - said Paolo Galfetti, CEO and Co-Founder of APR - to offer this new business opportunity to potential partners who are ready to exploit the increasing growth of the food supplement market addressed to adult and mature people needs. Seizing the global trend towards healthy ageing, SwitzAge is the first range of scientific proven solutions which aims at enhancing adult and mature people quality of life, enabling their physical, social and mental well-being.

About APR Applied Pharma Research s.a.

APR is a Swiss, independent developer of science driven, patent protected healthcare products. The Company identifies, develops and licenses, value added products designed to address patient or consumer needs in niche or rare therapeutic areas on a global basis. In particular, APRs business model is currently focused on two pillars: (i) internally developed and financed (alone or together with co-development partners) proprietary, value added products to be licensed to healthcare companies for their commercialization, and (ii) support to third party projects by offering added value R&D services under contract and fee for service arrangements. APR has a balanced pipeline of revenue generating branded products marketed in all major markets, combined with a compelling pipeline of products at different stages of development. APR has entered into licensing and partnership agreements with pharmaceutical companies in over 70 countries, with international sales on a worldwide basis.

For press releases and other company information, please visit: http://www.apr.ch or http://www.switzage.ch/en

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APR Applied Pharma Research Introduces SwitzAge: The First 100% Swiss Made Nutraceutical Product Line ... - Business Wire (press release)