Free Republic

The $36 billion U.S. supplement industry isn't subject to FDA regulation, which both facilitates experimentation and allows products that don't live up to their health claims to flourish. Neil Thanedar has a free market solution: In 2012, he co-founded Labdoor to bring accountability to the supplements industry without quashing its dynamism. The company, which has received backing from venture capitalists Mark Cuban and Y Combinator, buys products right off the shelves, tests them, and then posts the results on its website. The company doesn't currently have the resources to verify whether a given supplement actually delivers its promised effects, testing...

Credit: Shutterstock Turmeric supplements are popular these days, but for one woman in Arizona, taking a turmeric supplement may have triggered an uncommon liver problem, according to a new report of the case. What's more, the link between the woman's liver problem and her turmeric supplement use wasn't identified by her doctors — but rather by the woman herself, after she consulted the internet. Until the woman brought it up, her doctors weren't aware that she was taking a turmeric supplement, and the case underscores the need for doctors and patients to communicate about the supplements that patients are...

Alternative remedies like homeopathic treatments have become popular in recent years and now make up a $3 billion industry. But the Food and Drug Administration will begin scrutinizing products that could be dangerous to vulnerable populations. Many homeopathic remedies are derived from plants and claim to treat everything from the common cold to serious diseases. But the FDA fears that these products can "bring little to no benefit in combating serious ailments, or worse — may cause significant and even irreparable harm because the products are poorly manufactured, or contain active ingredients that aren’t adequately tested or disclosed to patients,"...

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Taking calcium supplements with the hope of keeping osteoporosis at bay may raise an older woman's risk of dementia, a new study suggests. And that seems particularly true if a woman has already sustained an event causing poor blood flow to the brain (cerebrovascular disease), such as from a stroke, researchers said. The study can't prove cause-and-effect. However, dementia risk was seven times higher in female stroke survivors who took calcium supplements, compared to women with a history of stroke who didn't use the supplements, the findings showed. The risk of dementia also...

By Up to three-quarters of American adults take some kind of vitamin or supplement, so there's a pretty good chance you're one of them. That's a lot of people purchasing substances that aren't evaluated by the FDA, and for the most part don't work. What's more, vitamins and supplements are only getting more popular, with sales growing 50% faster than those of over-the-counter drugs over the past several years. Basically, most of you are throwing money away on magical beans -- stop it already! There's not a whole lot of regulation, which is good for sales pitches One of the...

Samuel Blackstone, Details Magazine November 8, 2015Daylight savings time is here, whether you like it or not. That means more cold weather, less warm sun, and for some people, vitamin D deficiencies, which, like any vitamin deficiency, can cause a host of health problems. This week, though, researchers completed a preliminary study on vitamin D and found that if you do happen to get enough of this essential vitamin, it not only reduces the risk of heart disease, but also helps you exercise more strenuously, while simultaneously exhibiting lower signs of exertion. In layman's terms, vitamin D helps you exercise...

CHIMNEY ROCK, N.C. — Authorities say Dr. Jeff Bradstreet, who published research based on the medically disproved claim that vaccines cause autism, has been found dead in an apparent suicide in North Carolina. The Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release issued this week that Bradstreet died of what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. Bradstreet, who was from Braselton, Georgia, was found in the Rocky Broad River in Chimney Rock on June 19. His body was found by a fisherman. The sheriff’s department said Tuesday that a handgun was also pulled from the...

TEANECK, NJ — The former Ivy League student who vanished in December lost touch with reality after an addiction to energy supplements and penis enlargement pills, Timothy Hamlett's family tells The Daily Beast. The family believes supplements like Pygeum, Ginseng Panax, Vitalikor Male Enhancement, Big Jim and the Twins Penis Enlargement were responsible for the 20-year-old developing psychosis shortly before his disappearance. Hamlett, a former track star at the University of Pennsylvania, hopped a jitney near his Teaneck home into Washington Heights in Manhattan on Dec. 26. It's the last time he's been seen or heard from. "Our son did...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Bottles of Walmart-brand echinacea, an herb said to ward off colds, were found to contain no echinacea at all. GNC-brand bottles of St. John's wort, touted as a cure for depression, held rice, garlic and a tropical houseplant, but not a trace of the herb. In fact, DNA testing on hundreds of bottles of store-brand herbal supplements sold as treatments for everything from memory loss to prostate trouble found that four out of five contained none of the herbs on the label. Instead, they were packed with cheap fillers such as wheat, rice, beans or houseplants.

Vitamin D ...the researchers found that adults who took vitamin D supplements daily lived longer than those who didn't. Probiotics ...they're useful in very specific circumstances, but it's not necessary to continually take them on a daily basis. Zinc ...the mineral significantly reduced the duration of the cold, and also made symptoms less severe. Niacin ...Also known as vitamin B3, niacin is talked up as a cure for all sorts of conditions (including high cholesterol, Alzheimer's, diabetes and headaches) but in most of these cases, a prescription-strength dose of niacin has been needed to show a clear result. At over-the-counter...

Christopher, a high school student from Katy, Tex., suffered severe liver damage after using a concentrated green tea extract he bought at a nutrition store as a “fat burning” supplement. The damage was so extensive that he was put on the waiting list for a liver transplant.... Dietary supplements account for nearly 20 percent of drug-related liver injuries that turn up in hospitals, up from 7 percent a decade ago, according to an analysis by a national network of liver specialists.... “It’s really the Wild West,” said Dr. Herbert L. Bonkovsky, the director of the liver, digestive and metabolic disorders...

Q uestions about the health benefits of vitamin supplements have been percolating in the medical establishment for decades — even as the multivitamin industry has grown to a multi-billion powerhouse in the U.S. This week, the respected journal the Annals of Internal Medicine put its well-heeled foot down. "We believe that the case is closed — supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with (most) mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit and might even be harmful," the journal said in an editorial. "These vitamins should not be used for chronic disease prevention. Enough is enough." Here's Dr. Edgar Miller...

Americans spend an estimated $5 billion a year on unproven herbal supplements that promise everything from fighting off colds to curbing hot flashes and boosting memory. But now there is a new reason for supplement buyers to beware: DNA tests show that many pills labeled as healing herbs are little more than powdered rice and weeds. Using a test called DNA barcoding, a kind of genetic fingerprinting that has also been used to help uncover labeling fraud in the commercial seafood industry, Canadian researchers tested 44 bottles of popular supplements sold by 12 companies. They found that many were not...

The disease-fighting punch of green tea is largely due to its high concentration of epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), a substance with more antioxidant activity than vitamins C and E and other nutritional heavyweights. The other side of the green tea story: Even if you are consuming green tea, the truth is that you might not be getting what you pay for. Some bottled green teas and even green tea supplements contain only trace amounts of EGCG. Meanwhile, the amount of EGCG in other green tea–based products can vary by more than 240%. These and other findings, from the scientists at ConsumerLab.com,...

... Trouble getting to sleep: Magnesium plays a key role in the bodily function that regulates sleep. Insomnia is one of the symptoms of magnesium deficiency ,and in fact,a 2006 analysis in the journal Medical Hypothesis suggests that such a deficiency may even be the cause of most major depression and mental health problems.… Trouble staying asleep: Potassium supplements may be helpful to those who have trouble sleeping through the night,according to a 1991 study in the journal Sleep.... When most people think about potassium,they think bananas. Bananas do contain a fair amount of this mineral (about 10 percent of...

(AFP) – US scientists said Wednesday they have confirmed a surprising 2011 study that found a higher risk of prostate cancer among men who consume omega-3 fatty acids, raising new questions about the safety of supplements. The research in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute reported a 71 percent higher risk for dangerous high-grade prostate cancer among men who ate fatty fish or took fish-oil supplements, which are often touted for their anti-inflammatory properties. A large European study also found the same omega-3 and prostate cancer link.

UK researchers have found that high doses B-vitamins – including folic acid, vitamin B12 and vitamin B6 – can slow down brain tissue atrophy, a wasting process associated with Alzheimer’s disease.David Smith of the University of Oxford, and colleagues, used randomised controlled trials to test the long-term effects of B-vitamins on the brain health of elderly people with mild cognitive impairment, who were classed as having an increased risk of dementia. They found the brains of those treated with B-vitamins shrank less over a two year period than those given a placebo, and experienced less atrophy in regions of grey...

After all these years of media scare stories trying to terrify readers with worries about how kids are too sedentary and don't eat well, I suppose it's comforting to find a scare story about how teen boys are obsessed gym rats who consume lots of protein and very little fat. The New York Times delivers the goods: Take David Abusheikh. At age 15, he started lifting weights for two hours a day, six days a week. Now that he is a senior at Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn, he has been adding protein bars and shakes to his diet...

If you live in the U.S. and try to use Google Shopping to buy vitamins, supplements, personal care products, and even many health foods, your search queries will now turn up blank, as Google has apparently blocked access to all vitamins and natural products for American customers.