Posted on 01/17/2007 9:41:48 PM PST by neverdem
In October 1993, during a Senate hearing on a bill to regulate herbs, vitamins and other dietary supplements on the presumption that they were safe, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, spoke up in their defense. Herbal remedies “have been on the market for centuries,” he said, adding: “In fact, most of these have been on the market for 4,000 years, and the real issue is risk. And there is not much risk in any of these products.”
That benign view was written into the bill when it was passed by both houses the following year. While the law, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, forbade manufacturers to claim that their products “treat, cure or prevent” any disease, it allowed them to make vaguer claims based on a standard that did not require them to do any testing. And it stated that “dietary supplements are safe within a broad range of intake, and safety problems with the supplements are relatively rare.”
But hiding in plain sight, then as now, a national database was steadily accumulating strong evidence that some...
--snip--
There is no comparable requirement for supplements. Even so, hundreds of millions of tax dollars have been spent since the early 1990s on hundreds of studies to test the possible benefits of supplements. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, established by Congress in 1991 to “investigate and validate unconventional medical practices,” has a 2007 budget of more than $120 million.
Since April 2002, five large randomized trials financed by the center have found no significant benefit for St. John’s wort against major depression, echinacea against the common cold, saw palmetto for enlarged prostate, the combination of glucosamine and chondroitin for arthritis, or black cohosh and other herbs for the hot flashes associated with menopause.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I bet FDA approved drugs killed many more people, than vitamins and herbs.
"found no significant benefit for... the combination of glucosamine and chondroitin for arthritis"
All I can say is that it eliminated arthritis in my hands four years ago and the arthritis has not come back.
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Study uncovers a lethal secret of 1918 influenza virus
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NY Times is the enemy of personal responsibility and has some of the most uninformed correspondents on the alternative health movement. I take anything they say with a grain of salt.
"five large randomized trials ..... have found no significant benefit for .... the combination of glucosamine and chondroitin for arthritis"
Our doctor told my husband not to waste his money on the combination of glucosamine and chondroitin, but taking glucosamine alone has enabled my husband to walk virtually pain free with his bad knees!
That's no bet, that's a fact:
http://www.drug-injury.com/druginjurycom/2006/05/ketek_lawmakers.html
All of the OTC flu medicines in your local dugstore are placebo, i.e. ineffective.
Cranberry juice is a known treatment (for centuries) for moderate UTI yet can't be prescribed because no formal FDA study exists, and who would pay for such a study?
This list could go on for days.....
My FIL is a perfect example of how glucoasmine/chondroitin and saw palmetto has helped him. His neighbor across the stress is about the same age and similar lifestyle background and has bad arthritis. My FIL still hunts and works in his garden. Sometimes doctos can be a little taken aback when someone shows an interest in their own health. My doctor told me I'm in extraordinary health and I said, no I'm not. I'm thirty pounds overweight. He just laughed at me.
Hard to believe there was a placebo effect here. Fortunately for the dog, he can't read about clinical trials.
Sheesh they even serve cranberry juice to the old folks with UTIs at the home. The doctors prescribe melatonin for the old fellas that can't sleep. This book is a bum play, just like that ridiculous movie I saw... Supersize Me. Full of fluff.
Here is a hint: the FDA want to regulate supplements because if supplements are regulated, guess who is capable of dealing with those regulations.
Exactly. The pharmaceutical corporoations.
They would love nothing more than to get their hands on the sole right to distribute supplements in this country.
Such measures were placed in Germany, and the price of supplements increased five-fold overnight.
My guess is that the availability declined, but I'm not in a position to say one way or the other on that one.
I was so crippled by arthritis in my hip that I could not walk from the office to the office kitchen, just a few steps away. It was taking me 20 minutes to walk to the bus stop, which before had taken me just 7 minutes or so. I couldn't walk across campus, I couldn't make dinner standing up.
After about 4 weeks on glucosamine and chondroitin, I could walk, stand, and go up and down stairs. I feel like a normal person again, even tho some days I have to take it a little slower. I rarely have pain, and the pain I do have is taken care of by 2 tylenol or one of those heating 'pads' that sticks to your skin. I don't need the prescription painkiller I used to take. It has been a couple of years using this supplement and I feel my life is my own again.
Oh yeah, my doctor recommended it.
My 13 year-old mini dachshund has been getting Natural Choice dog food with glucosamine/chondroitin in it for years. Doxies are prone to back problems, but hers is just fine. I plan to keep it up.
It's amazing the trials don't pick up what seems to be widespread benefits from glucosamine.
The mainstream media types like Katie Couric want medicine to be a socialist paradise like Europe and Cue-ber. They do not want anyone to control the destiny of their health. Forget about herbs. They don't even want you to be able to control your orthodoc medicine choices. I've read the 'healthcare for all' bill making the rounds and it's a socialist nightmare for those of us that actually earn a living!
When I was having back problems, I found 3,000 mg of MSM helped ease the pain immensely. Anytime I see one of these official studies claiming they found no positive results I always take it with a grain of salt (oops, salt is bad). Too many people have been helped by supplements for there not to be some benefit.
I was amused to see the 'risk' shown in the data for homeopathic products of 564 hospitalizations and 2 deaths. When you take into account that homeopathic 'remedies' are diluted to the point where all you're getting is a drink of water, to have any deaths or hospitalization at all is laughable.
NSAIDS alone probably cause most of the Irritable Bowel Syndrome -- for which the cure is the fastest growing fad prescription of these times -- the acid reflux reducers.
And they keep trying to scare people away from acetaminophen (Tylenol) as the remedy of choice with virtually none of the negative side-effects -- especially gastrointestinal upset.
Not all nutraceuticals work for everybody -- just like not all drugs work for anybody, or all food, or all anything. But if it works for you, then it works -- and no polls and studies should convince one otherwise.
the reality takes preference over the gross generalization. I hope no more books like this are written again -- or these copious articles in the New York Times of writers whose only major expertise seems to be in selling hastily written articles to the gullibles at the New York Times.
Have they ever heard of the one by Jayson Blair...?
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