Dietary Supplements: What (2013) founds that dietary supplement may be perceived as a harmless stimulant to health. Some of dietary supplement products have demonstrated benefits, many of which we cannot say the same. Unlike what happens with curative drugs, the FDA does not evaluate the safety and effectiveness of dietary supplements, and depending on current medications or health problems we have; "natural" supplements can have risky health effects. This lack of regulation can lead to wildly inconsistent quality and there are no guarantees that the ingredient touted on the label of a bottle will be in the supplement at all. According to federal law, dietary supplements cannot be promoted as effective for the treatment of a disease because that is not proven to be safe and effective. According with Desai, K. (2012) the consumer reports from 2007 …show more content…
This means that: The FDA does not approve dietary supplements before producing or put them on sale, and can only take action against products that are unsafe or products that make false claims after they are on sale. In other words, the FDA cannot even inspect the manufacturing process of the company unless there is reasonable evidence that their products are harming people-and this means that some people need to be hurt before the FDA can step in; if somebody ask me that is a bit late. It is incredible that someone has to be damaged in order that FDA takes action. The dietary supplement manufacturers are responsible for the safety of its products and must meet a series of standards for quality assurance in manufacturing, packaging and labeling of their products. Manufacturers of dietary supplements should also make monitoring for adverse events reported regarding their products and report all serious adverse events to the FDA. The advertising of dietary supplements is regulated by the Federal Trade Commission
Recently, another weight loss supplement has stepped into the ever-increasing market. This drug, called Stimulife 750, is a supposedly all-natural herbal supplement that promotes weight loss without any effort from the client. Both the parent company – Stimulife International – and various distributors of Stimulife 750 make bold blanket statements such as “Stimulife 750 has everything good and nothing bad,” which set the success of the pill far higher than is possible. Furthermore, these individuals attempting to sell the product use a variety of marketing techniques to encourage purchasing the supplement; however, they provide no scientific evidence to support the claims they make regarding the safety and effectiveness of the product. By appealing to the clients’ desire for a natural and easy way to lose weight, providing pseudo-scientific statements to convey a sense of authenticity to the product, and befriending the client by seeming to care for their best interests, the distributers attempt to woo more clients. However, Stimulife 750 contains many ingredients included in other “unsafe” weight loss supplements and scientific research shows no clear evidence that Stimulife 750 is any more effective or safe as other diet pills.
The major use for herbal medicines is for the promotion of health and for therapy for chronic conditions, instead of being used for life-threatening conditions; except in the event of say advanced cancer or new infectious diseases when conventional medicine practices no longer are working an individual may use traditional remedies. While traditional medicines are often mistaken that because they are natural that they are safe, non-toxic, which is not always the case. In cases when an individual is taking herbs with prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, or other herbs that may cause some adverse side affects. As a flourishing commercial enterprise, it doesn’t matter why an individual uses traditional medicines, it provides important health care services for individuals that have access physically or finantually to allopathic
Dietary supplements are used to add additional nutritional value to the diet. Some common forms of supplements include: vitamins, amino acids, minerals, herbs, and enzymes, and can be found in a multitude of forms such as capsules, liquids, gel caps, powders, and tablets. Dietary supplements are becoming increasingly popular among Americans today. According to the Centers for Disease and Control, “Over half of the adults in the U.S. use at least one type of dietary supplement, the most common being multivitamins.”1 Many use these vitamins because they are believed to present a number of benefits, such as helping or treating diseases, etc. While dietary supplements can be beneficial to your health; Americans should also be cognizant of the health
For many centuries, humanity has been on an eternal quest for cures and treatments for many chronic conditions. At the present time, conventional medicine is mostly performed by doctors and other health care professionals, with the extensive use of pharmaceutical drugs, surgery or radiation treatments for disease treatment. Conversely, even though not as popular, complementary and alternative medicine and treatment options are slowly gaining popularity and becoming an addition to traditional medicine.
Bodybuilding supplements commonly used by bodybuilders but now people take supplements to place meals, enhance weight loss or improve athletic performance Most of people believe that taking supplements have side effects and warn each other from taking supplements, but the surprise that doctors recommend to take supplements. There are various types of supplements, but the idea is what your body needs to take. You may hear some say "OH! No don't take supplements you will damage your health "they say this without knowing what the supplements contain Most of the supplements are taken by bodybuilders to increase their muscles although some people people believe taking supplements are dangerous and unhealthy have side negative effects or to help them to improve their physical metabolism, improve the outer appearance and to lose weight.
does not mean it is perfectly safe. Some medicine may have side effects, but the FDA considers
The Journal of Dietary Supplements discusses the increased use of “Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (CAM)” and how it is becoming a need among physicians to educate and train themselves so that the idea of Integrative Medicine is a realization to the public (Litchy, 2011). This holistic approach allows the ability for conventional medicine to be incorporated with alternative interventions which, further enables the patient to decide which route of care best suits their specific preferences.
An increasing number of people are using products to enhance their diets. A recent estimate indicates, “Americans are spending some $6 billion annually on nutritional supplements, and the market is growing by 20% every year” (Zahn, 1997). Of these supplements, the increase in herbal remedy use is most dramatic. Zahn holds that the increase can be attributed to the widely held belief that herbal substances are healthy and harmless because of their natural origins (1997). Unfortunately, research on these supplements, herbal or otherwise, has not transmitted to the public as quickly as the diet enhancers themselves. The phenomenon leaves many consumers misguided by skewed advertising and uninformed about the potential risks involved in ingesting these seemingly harmless, over the counter substances. The following is an attempt to look at one particular herbal supplement, Ma-Huang (active ingredient, ephedrine), more critically.
One of the reasons that there is so much confusion is the lack of involvement by Federal Food and Drug Administrations in herbal remedies. The Dietary Supplement Health Education Act of 1994 put herbal remedies into the category of dietary supplements. This means that these herbal remedies are not subjected to the same sort of testing that over-the-counter or prescription medications are (USFDA). Michael Mc Guffin, the president of the American Herbal Producers Association has said that testing of these products is unnecessary because, “ these products are tested by years and years of use”.
In Lee Ann Fisher Baron’s “Junk Science,” she claims that the “food industry with the help of federal regulators” sometimes use “[a science that] bypasses [the] system of peer review. Presented directly to the public by…‘experts’ or ‘activists,’ often with little or no supporting evidence, this ‘junk science’ undermines the ability…[for] everyday consumers to make rational decisions” (921). Yet Americans still have a lot of faith in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). According to a 2013 Pew Research study, 65% of Americans are “very favorable” or “mostly favorable” of the FDA. When it comes to what people put in their bodies, the FDA has a moral obligation to be truthful and transparent. The bottom line of the FDA’s myriad of responsibilities is to help protect the health of Americans. Deciding what to eat is a critical part of living healthily, and consumers must be able to trust that this massive government agency is informing them properly of the contents of food. While the FDA does an excellent job in many areas, it has flaws in other areas. One of its flaws is allowing the food industry to print food labels that are deceptive, unclear, or simply not true (known as misbranding). This is quite the hot topic because a Google search for “Should I trust food labels” returns well over 20 million results, many of which are blog posts from online writers begging their readers not to trust food labels. HowStuffWorks, a division of Discovery Communications, published an online article whose author claims that “[the food industry] will put what they want on labels. They know the game….” While the food industry is partially at blame for misbranding, the FDA is allowing it to happen. If a mother tells her children that it is oka...
Some examples of claims are "low-fat", "lite", "light", "reduced", "%fat free" and "No added". The food industry is very keen to make health claims on food labels, and the ANZFA has considered lifting the ban that stops them from doing so. Many disagreeable claims are made regarding the ability of nutrients to prevent certain diseases. Food manufacturers are now only allowed to make the following well-established claims concerning relationships between diet and disease: Calcium and a reduced risk of osteoporosis. Fat and increased risk of cancer.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994". December 1, 1995.
Fiber supplements benefit the body through maintaining regularity in the digestive system. Fiber supplements assist the body in compensating for fiber deficiencies when there remains an inadequate amount of fiber in the digestive system. In addition, fiber supplements help to relieve constipation. Fiber can become an aid in weight reduction as well. In all fiber supplements assist in the maintenance of good health and nutrition.
In recent years, the exposure of pill-peddling pharmaceutical companies and the dangers- such as the various toxins and the risk of dependence- that their manufactured drugs pose on the body has turned more and more people of the western world back to basics for their health care. Richard L. Nahin from the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine states that according to the institute’s latest research, "It's clear that millions of Americans every year are turning to complementary and alternative medicine."
Herbal and natural medicine is becoming increasingly popular in 21st century culture. It may be surprising to some that many of these herbal treatments and medicines have been around for centuries and are the basis for both commercially prepared medications, as well as the chemical manufacture of new pharmaceutical compounds (Phaneuf, 2005). One of these compounds, which has influenced chemistry and medicine for centuries is willow bark, which contains the chemical salicin (Boon, 2009). Its origins and discovery, as well as the historical culture, have influenced its incorporation as the common pharmaceutical preparation known as aspirin.