MONDAY, Oct. 22, 2018 (HealthDay News) — The U.S. Drug and Food Administration has repeatedly warned manufacturers that many dietary supplements contain dangerous, experimental stimulants. But according to a new report, 75 percent of supplements tested still contain the compounds.
“Consumers turn to supplements for safe, natural ways to increase energy, improve workouts or lose weight,” said study author Dr. Pieter Cohen, an associate professor with Harvard Medical School. “[But] what most consumers don’t know is that supplements can be sold as if they give you energy, help you lose weight or just about anything, as long as the supplement does not claim to cure or treat disease.”
His team’s findings centered on four unapproved stimulants: DMAA, DMBA, BMPEA and oxilofrine.
The four have become replacements for the stimulant ephedra, which the FDA banned from supplements in 2004 following reports that it raised the risk for heart attack, stroke and death.
Between 2013 and 2016, the FDA found that 12 different supplement brands contained one or more of the four unapproved stimulants. But despite public notice warnings from the agency, three-quarters of the supplements still contained at least one prohibited stimulant in 2017. And half contained two or more.
The finding raises fresh concerns about supplement safety, and comes on the heels of another troubling analysis published just last week by the California Department of Public Health’s Food and Drug Branch.
That investigation revealed that the FDA had issued more than 700 warnings over the last decade about potentially hazardous ingredients found in supplements promoted as sexual, weight-loss and muscle growth aids.
But because the FDA classifies dietary supplements as a food — rather than as drugs — supplement manufacturers do not have to prove a supplement is safe or effective before selling it to the public.
If, however, the FDA ultimately determines that a supplement already on the market is potentially hazardous, it can recall the product or issue a “public notice” concerning problematic ingredients.
In a letter published online Oct. 22 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, Cohen and his colleagues point to an earlier study that suggests that FDA recalls, for one, are largely ineffective.
Continued
The latest investigation focused on the effectiveness of public notice warnings, and found equally poor results.
“The FDA seems to imagine that if they simply request that firms remove an experimental stimulant from commerce, the stimulant will be removed,” Cohen said. “Clearly this is wishful thinking on the part of the FDA.”
Cohen noted that he and his associates conducted two analyses of 12 supplements previously issued public notices for unapproved ingredients.
The first analysis took place in 2014. At that time, all 12 supplements contained at least one of the four prohibited stimulants.
The second analysis took place in 2017. At that point, nine of the 12 brands contained at least one prohibited supplement and six contained two.
The team also pointed out that although DMBA had not been found in any of the 12 supplements in 2014, it was found in a third of the supplements in 2017, two years after the FDA issued a public notice raising concern about the ingredient.
“Until the law is reformed and the FDA aggressively enforces the law, these potentially dangerous ingredients will likely remain in supplements,” said Cohen.
Dr. Mitchell Katz is president and CEO of NYC Health and Hospitals in New York City, and author of an accompanying editorial. He suggested that the upshot is that the FDA is hamstrung in what it can do.
“The FDA is not allowed by federal law to investigate a product before it is marketed,” Katz noted. “Therefore, all that the FDA can do under current law is respond to complaints and issue guidelines of what can and cannot be in supplements.”
The bottom line, said Katz, is that “people should know that the supplements they are taking are not tested [and] may contain substances that are not on the label.”
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Folks, wake-up and smell the rip-off along with your coffee. Over-the-counter weight loss products that make get-thin-quick promises do not work. The greedy diet industry generates more than $40 billion a year. If any fad diet worked the entire world would know it.
Include weight loss patches in the list of snake oils. I shout, “phony baloney.”
Weight loss patches are considered dietary supplements and do not undergo testing by the Food and Drug Administration.
“In 2004, the Federal Trade Commission charged a number of weight-loss patch manufacturers with fraud and false advertising as a result of an investigation initiated by complaints from customers. The claims included that the patches would cause permanent weight loss, melt away fat and enable users to lose up to three pounds per week. Some of the charges were also brought because some companies claimed they had back-up from the FDA or that the ingredients used in the patch had been approved by the FDA,” according to an article on the Live Strong website. www.livestrong.com/.
Furthermore, there is no evidence that these patches work. Any studies claimed by the product manufacturers are bogus as their claims do not meet standards for scientific studies. You might as well flush your dollars down the toilet. The only thing you’ll lose is your cash.
Diet patches stick on your skin like a Band-Aid. And many have flowery designs. Weigh management skin patches are fake. Tummy patches to reduce weight gain and fat mass are false. Weight-loss patches might seem like a dieter’s dream, but they are a nightmare. Why? Because the company is taking your coins—and patches do not work. Buyers are making owners happy scammers.
And the latest news is that scientists from the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore have developed a new skin patch with micro-needles that burn a significant amount of tummy fat. Is this just another snake oil gimmick? The patch has been tested in mice and not humans. Well, let’s just put these skinny mice in bikinis and plaster their photos on glamour magazines. And lets throw our common sense down the sewer.
“But experts say no effective weight loss drugs have been designed to be delivered through the skin via patches. Most of the time, these patches contain the same ineffective herbs found in dietary supplements or teas,” according to an article on WebMD. www.webmd.com/.
Ingredients
Ingredients used in weight-loss patches may include a stimulant such as guarana or the appetite suppressant hoodia, among others. And if these patches really worked the world would be abuzz with the news!
Garcinia cambogia is no miracle weight-loss ingredient either, according to Consumer Reports. “In 2009 the Food and Drug Administration warned consumers about Hydroxycut, a product line containing garcinia cambogia and several other ingredients, based on serious reports of health problems, including jaundice, elevated liver enzymes, liver damage requiring a transplant, and one death from liver failure.” www.consumerreports.org/ http://www.consumerreports.org/ . Consumers, buy-at-your-own risk.
The Takeaway
Don’t be bamboozled by slippery sales pitches, counterfeit claims, and glittery gimmicks. Step away from your credit card when you encounter a weight loss patch advertisement. Save your money to spend on a consultation with a dietician, healthy foods, and a gym membership.
Melissa Martin, Ph.D, is an author, columnist, educator, and therapist. She resides in
Southern Ohio. www.melissamartinchildrensauthor.com http://www.melissamartinchildrensauthor.com/ . Contact her at [email protected] mailto:[email protected] .
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US government advice suggests the supplements have “little or no effect” on weight loss
A company that sold “ineffective” fat-fighting herbal supplements is facing a $12.8m (£9.6m) fine for allegedly buying fake reviews on Amazon.
The fine is part of a settlement deal Cure Encapsulations has reached with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Cure had paid a now defunct website for positive reviews to push claims its pills helped weight loss, said the FTC.
The company has also been told to stop making “false and unsubstantiated” claims about one supplement.
‘Liver injury’
Cure Encapsulations makes pills it claims can be used to lose weight, using extracts made from the rind of a tropical fruit called Garcinia cambogia – a variety of tamarind.
But US research suggests such supplements have caused “acute liver injury” in some people who took them regularly. And US government advice suggests they have “little or no effect” on weight loss.
The FTC said Cure had spent significant sums to get positive reviews on Amazon that had been “fabricated” to seem as if they had come from actual customers.
And it had specified they must:
claim the pills “block” fat and cause “significant weight loss”
result in the supplement being given a five-star rating, to bump up sales
The settlement demands Cure Encapsulations contacts former customers, passing on official doubts about the efficacy of its products.
It has also been told to seek “competent and reliable” scientific evidence for any health-boosting claims it makes in the future for Garcinia-based supplements.
A US judge must now rule on whether the settlement is an appropriate remedy for Cure’s conduct.
The proportion of the $12.8m fine the company would actually end up paying depended on how much cash it had at its disposal, the FTC said.
Review police
“People rely on reviews when they’re shopping online,” said Andrew Smith, head of the FTC’s consumer protection division, in a statement.
“When a company buys fake reviews to inflate its Amazon ratings, it hurts both shoppers and companies that play by the rules.”
The case is the first FTC settlement deal to centre on fraudulent Amazon reviews.
In a statement, Amazon said it “welcomed” the FTC’s action and invested “significant resources” in protecting reviews.
“Even one inauthentic review is one too many,” it said.
Cure Encapsulations has yet to respond to a BBC News request for comment.
This software is still in development, so we don’t recommend you run it on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with the new version.
There are two ways to test the WordPress 5.2 beta: try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want to select the “bleeding edge nightlies” option), or you can download the beta here (zip).
WordPress 5.2 is slated for release on April 30, and we need your help to get there! Thanks to the testing and feedback from everyone who tried beta 1, nearly 100 tickets have been closed since then. Here are the major changes and bug fixes:
We’ve added support for Emoji 12!
A brand-new wp_body_open() template tag (and corresponding wp_body_open action) will let themes (and plugins!) add content right after the <body> is opened (#12563).
Superfluous paragraph tags will no longer incorrectly appear in dynamic block content (#45495).
The Site Health screens have received several bug fixes, tweaks, and performance improvements.
Crash Protection no longer interrupts plugin editing (#46045).
Custom error handlers now load correctly (#46069).
Minimum PHP Version Update
As of WordPress 5.2 beta 2, the minimum PHP version that WordPress will require is 5.6.20. If you’re running an older version of PHP, we highly recommend updating it now, before WordPress 5.2 is officially released.
WordPress 5.2 has lots of refinements to polish the developer experience. To keep up, subscribe to the Make WordPress Core blog and pay special attention to the developers notes for updates on those and other changes that could affect your products.
If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We’d love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.
The wonderful thing about betas, is betas are wonderful things.
This article is a guide on how to add a CORS implementation on an existing DotKernel3 project. The issue If you’re facing this message: “Access to XMLHttpRequest at ‘url’ has been blocked by cors policy. No ‘Access-Control-Allow-Origin header is present … Read More
It was noted an increase on NUTRAFUELS INC (OTCMKTS:NTFU)’s short interest with 192%. FINRA issued short interest of NTFU’s total 14,600 shares. The up change of 192% from 5,000 shares was reported. NUTRAFUELS INC (OTCMKTS:NTFU) has 100,800 shares average volume. It’ll cost 0 days for NTFU to recover its previous position.
The stock increased 0.20% or $0.0004 during the last trading session, reaching $0.1743.Currently NutraLife BioSciences, Inc. is after 0.00% change in last April 8, 2018. NTFU has 27,175 shares volume. NTFU underperformed by 4.37% the SP 500.
NutraFuels, Inc. manufactures and distributes oral spray nutritional and dietary products to retail and wholesale outlets.The firm is valued at $19.17 million. The companyÂ’s products include sleep spray to support a healthy sleep cycle and improve the quality of restful sleep; energize spray to enhance energy, and restore vigor and vitality; and garcinia cambogia spray, an appetite and weight management spray.Currently it has negative earnings. It also offers NRG-X extreme energy spray to enhance energy and stamina; headache and pain spray to relieve headaches and pain; and hair, skin, and nails spray to nourish and encourage hair, skin, and nail growth.
Another two news for NutraLife BioSciences, Inc. (OTCMKTS:NTFU) were recently posted by: Marketwired.com on January 29, 2018 with title “NutraFuels (NTFU) Files its Application to Up List to the OTCQB OTC Market – Marketwired”. The other Globenewswire.com‘s article was titled “Freedom Leaf Inc. Announces National Distribution Agreement Other OTC:FRLF – GlobeNewswire” and posted on February 28, 2018.
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Garcinia Cambogia has been used for thousands of years in the Orient as a food supplement. It is used as an appetite suppressant and to inhibit the absorption and synthesis of fat, cholesterol and triglycerides.
The Garcinia Cambogia Extract market was valued at xx Million US$ in 2017 and is projected to reach xx Million US$ by 2025, at a CAGR of xx% during the forecast period. In this study, 2017 has been considered as the base year and 2018 to 2025 as the forecast period to estimate the market size for Garcinia Cambogia Extract.
This study focuses on the production side and consumption side of Garcinia Cambogia Extract, presents the global Garcinia Cambogia Extract market size by manufacturers, regions, type and application, history breakdown data from 2013 to 2018, and forecast to 2025.
In terms of production side, this report researches the Garcinia Cambogia Extract capacity, production, value, ex-factory price, growth rate, market share for major manufacturers, regions (or countries) and product type.
In terms of consumption side, this report focuses on the consumption of Garcinia Cambogia Extract by regions and application. The key regions like North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Central South America, Middle East and Africa etc.
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