It seems like there’s often reports on the news about drugs or supplements being recalled for one reason or another. Tuesday’s short entry about the Hydroxycut recall really made me mad.
In the past, I’ve taken both diet drugs and diet supplements. In fact, I have a bottle of Hydroxycut in my medicine cabinet that my sister gave me several years ago. I should go upstairs and trash it right now while I’m thinking about it.
So just what is the difference between a supplement and a drug? According to the article cited on Tuesday: a drug is a substance that prevents or cures diseases while a supplement can offer general health benefits but can’t claim to treat specific symptoms or diseases.
But here’s the big problem with nutritional supplements. While drug makers need to provide safety and effectiveness data to the FDA before being approved, supplement makers do not. The manufacturers of supplements are solely responsible for the testing and marketing of their products. How backwards is that? The only people who have a vested interest in whether their product works are the same people who pay for, conduct, and evaluate the research that says whether it actually does what it’s supposed to. The FDA doesn’t get involved until a problem arises. And by then it’s too late.
Supplement makers need to be regulated just like drug makers do or there will be more problems in the future. The only problem with that solution is that it will cost a lot of money. Who’s going to pay for it?
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If people would just stop buying them…..
(wink, wink, nudge, nudge). If someone says, “I
have a pill here, and it will make you lose
weight”, he’s either a liar, or selling poison, and in
either case should go to jail. The ads are so
obvious, and so BAD, grrrrrr…….
The same thing applies to herbal supplements, not just diet supplements either: no FDA regulation. Herbal supplements CAN be helpful, but they can be very harmful as well. I have seen a man who’s blood wouldn’t clot and need 120 units of blood because he took too many “garlic extract pills.” And I have done an autopsy on a 25 year old girl who died from ephedra toxicity to her liver.
Be careful what you put in your body; there are no magic pills!