“Numerous recent studies have undercut the purported benefits of various herbal supplements. Gingko, echinacea and St. John’s wort, have all been found relatively ineffective against many of the ills they have been claimed to help.
This does not seem to have slowed purchases by U.S. consumers, who spent $14.8 billion on these and other natural supplements in 2007, according to a report released last summer.
It also hasn’t stopped many supplement sellers from making the false claims and even recommending potentially dangerous uses of the products to customers, according to a recent investigation conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). To obtain a sample of sales practices, the agency got staff members to call online retailers and to pose undercover as elderly customers at stores selling supplements.
Customers were not only told that supplements were capable of results for which there is no scientific evidence (such as preventing or curing Alzheimer’s disease); the advice and information also was potentially harmful (including a recommendation to replace prescription medicine with garlic). Excerpts from secretly recorded conversations are available on the GAO’s Web site.”
Read more at Scientific American
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This is disturbing to say the least.
“…and St. John’s wort, have all been found relatively ineffective against many of the ills they have been claimed to help.”
Well damn
I use St. John’s wort, albeit the really mild version.
As it happens I don’t think my particular pills are dangerous/too much but its scary to think what some people must be taking! As for them not working…I seem to be getting better BUT I’m aware that it could all be in my head (a placebo effect, right?). In all honesty, even if I really am imagining it, thats still better than nothing…
Studies, even numerous recent ones, do not necessarily equate to absolute proof. Their conclusions depend on who conducts them and under what conditions, and how the results are interpreted.
What the patient believes they will gain from a course of treatment no doubt influences the outcome: i.e. the psychological effect of believing in herbal remedies is a valid contributing factor. This may be absent from clinical studies.
Results of research sponsored or associated with pharmaceutical manufacturers might well be interpreted differently than if it were sponsored by makers of herbal remedies.
Finally, making irresponsible, if well meaning, claims about results of a treatment does not in itself invalidate the treatment, even though it brings the integrity of the practitioner into question.
Thank you Charles Moran. Need I say more? Very well put.
I thought (though I can’t remember why…) that St. John’s Wort had some sound research behind it and that scientists were attempting to isolate the active principle? Probably woo woo hyperbole again.
hel, drug companies dispense the same thing…they use us as guinea pigs. and all the feds do is make em take the drug off the market–victims hafta go to court themselves fer redress.
btw, IMHO, herbs cannot be effectively studied in clinical trials–unlike drugs, which are uniformly manufactured by one company in one facility fer test purposes, herbs have WAY too many variables.
How about all the studies that do show the effectiveness of said supplements? Also are the supplements taken in therapeutic dose? Sure vitamin C has been shown to cause apoptosis of cancer cells however if you are taking 1 g orally per day that is definitely not going to do anything . Maybe people need to take supplements with the advice of an expert rather than just self medicate.
Tina: The article talks of ‘various herbal supplements’, i.e. not all vitamins, minerals and supplements. I don’t know anything about the cancer-fighting properties of vitamin C, but vitamin C is ascorbic acid, not a herbal supplement. And if ‘expert advice’ is the advice to stop taking conventional medications (as in a case described in the article), I wouldn’t put much trust in those experts.