15 dietary supplement ingredients to avoid

Consumer Reports found that an estimated 23,000 people end up in the emergency room after taking supplements every year.

Dietary supplements are now a $40 billion a year industry, but they’re not as safe as you might think. They also don’t have to prove that the packages contain what the labels say they do.

The government regulates dietary supplements under a different set of regulations than those covering “conventional” foods and drug products. They’ve been linked to serious health hazards. So long as a product does not claim to treat an illness, it does not need to prove either its efficacy or its safety, according to Consumer Reports.

In response, the Council for Responsible Nutrition representing supplement manufacturers says that supplements are adequately regulated and that the vast majority are safe.

The risk and severity of these side effects depends on factors like pre-existing medical conditions, how much of the ingredient is taken and for how long it was taken.

Consumer Reports discusses a particular case, in which an eight-day-old preemie baby, Calvin Jimmy Lee-White, died in 2014, after being administered probiotics. And if consumers have specific questions, they might be out of luck. At that moment, Doctors discovered his body was overrun by a rare fungus infection that ended up blocking his aorta. The FDA chose to release a statement urging doctors to be more cautious with the use of probiotic supplements.

Another substance the researchers red-flagged was green tea extract powder, which is sold as a solution for weight loss.

Health problems related to the ingredients include liver and kidney failure, seizures and heart problems.

Of course, there have been large studies conducted on vitamins’ effectiveness, but results can be hazy at best, contradictory at worst, and rarely, if ever, demonstrate a causal link between a positive outcome and a vitamin supplement.

“I feel that it’s the responsibility of the person coming in buying a vitamin or supplements that they should tell the salesperson that they are on certain medications and if not, they should be reading the label”. Henry Waxman, a former Democratic Congressman from California, remembers the debate as the unique lobbying campaign he ever saw. What’s more, the facilities in which they are made are not overseen as well as those of pharmaceutical companies. “What they didn’t understand was that this picture was manipulated by people who stood to make a lot of money” claimed Waxman, remembering the controversy.