The Truth Behind Dietary Supplements When I was growing up our cars had rolled down windows, and if we wanted to change the channel on TV we had to get up and manually press the button. Today we have remote controls for almost everything, and we are used to a world with magical buttons. Maybe that is why our society thinks that even food, and vitamin intake has a magical button. I used to take Vitamin Supplements on a regular basis, and I was certain that my body was receiving everything it needs through the magical pill. I was certain I was doing the perfect thing until the day I attended Wellness Class. The professor asked the whole class to bring one bottle of a supplement that we were taking. Almost the whole class brought in some kind of supplement, and the experiment began. There were more then twenty small plastic cups half filled with regular vinegar, and everybody put one tablet from our bottles that we brought in a cup at the same time. Half an hour later, all of us had to take out whatever was left of the tablet, or capsule out of the cup. Most of us took out at least two thirds of the a tablet that was still in one piece, a couple of people even took out a whole tablet, and only a few weren’t able to take out anything because it had dissolved. Well, the experiment is actually proving how our bodies are absorbing those supplements, and in most cases it just goes through us. After the experiment the professor started talking about Dietary Supplements, and how they are not regulated. It was shocking and I didn’t want to absorb the information. I didn’t want to believe that I was putting my faith in something that is not what it seems. As soon as I came home I started researching everything I could find on Vitamins, and I was even more surprised when I found out that in some instances those supplements could actually harm you more then give you benefits. For example; the majority of people are getting enough of vitamin A through food, and on top of it if a supplement is being taken that contains vitamin A, it could lead to overdose, and an overdose of vitamin A could be deadly (FDA). Originally Supplements were created for people with certain health problems, or after surgery, and they were meant to be a temporary solution, and today the Dietary and Vitamin Supplement Industry is a multi billion dollars Industry and it’s all thanks to people like us. The History of Dietary Supplements goes way back, but according to Paul A.Kimpel; Asia has one of the oldest histories of using supplements. Paul A. Kimpel is a professional journalist that obtained majority of his information by conducting various interviews with industry professionals. Paul really nicely put together a statement that is short but very descriptive, I quote: “Prior to 1990, all dietary supplements were tightly regulated by the FDA and only included essential nutrients such as vitamins, minerals and proteins. In 1990, the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act expanded the category to include "herbs or similar nutritional substances, but the FDA maintained control over pre-market approval. However, in 1994, a law was passed that drastically changed the dietary supplement marketplace. That law is the landmark Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), and it expanded the category of dietary supplements further to include substances such as ginseng, fish oils, enzymes, glandular products such as hormones and steroids, and mixtures of these. More important to the consumer, DSHEA also removed much of the FDA's control over dietary supplements and created what is considered by many health officials to be a virtually unregulated industry. There is no law to prevent you from chopping up some potent herbs, putting them in a bottle, and making claims for those herb's effects. All that is necessary is to send a letter to the FDA stating that you don't "expect any negative side effects from the product." The FDA has no authority to deny your product entry into the marketplace! Once again, the term is Buyer Beware. According to Paul Kimpel, a dietary supplement is any product intended to supplement the diet that contains one or more of the following ingredients: a vitamin, a mineral, an herb or other botanical, an amino acid, organ tissues, or a concentrate or extract of these ingredients. It cannot be represented for use as a food. A dietary supplement can come in many forms such as capsules, powders, or liquids and can be bought at any store.
How is the FDA making sure that supplements are safe for us to take? The truth is FDA has hundreds, and hundreds of pages in Guidance for Dietary Supplement Industry “Section 403”. and this is what it says: “It is responsibility of Dietary Vitamin Supplement Manufacturer/distributor that their products are safe, and that their label claims are accurate and truthful”. Interesting right? If you ever read labels really carefully you could probably recall that the fine print always contain words like MAY, or CAN. For example, it may reduce cholesterol, or it can improve skin tone. The magical words, may, and can. My next question was how the FDA is making sure that the claims of Dietary Vitamin Supplement Manufacturer/Distributor are accurate. The FDA is requiring the claims to be supported by analyses, research, and evidence performed by a professional, but the FDA is not stating how much research, and evidence they need, it’s totally based on a standard of the manufacturer. Since 2000, and that was when Paul A. Kimpel established this website the FDA passed new law, and even though it is still responsibility of Dietary Vitamin Supplement Manufacturer/distributor to make sure the claims are accurate they have to “meet new government standards to show the products are free of contamination and contain exactly what the label says” (Reuters). Before this regulation was passed the products would have claims about the content that wasn’t even there. So I thought to myself, if the manufacturer decided that they have enough evidence after a week of research, is that still sufficient? Also, how can I be sure as a consumer that everything they said is actually contained in the supplements. Basically we are relying on a multi billion dollar Industry to tell us what this product is really good for, but don’t forget that the same industry is relying on us buying their products. According to New York Times just last year the industry accounted for 18 billion dollars in sales. Consumers spend billions of dollars on supplements in search for a better, and healthier life, but “Synthetic vitamins simply cannot measure up to nature’s finest. Over 3,800 different compounds have been identified in foods as having nutritional significance. However, in a laboratory, twenty nutrients are about all that modern science can reproduce and put into a vitamin product” (Steady.Health.com). The fast paced style of life, and the booming technology is forming our minds to be more adaptive toward fast and easy solutions. The magical pill is the problem solution for most of us. The worst thing in all of this is that the majority of supplement users is not even aware of the fact that this is not really how it was presented to us, and I am basing this statement just by my first hand survey that I conducted recently. When I asked people in my survey if they were aware of the fact that Dietary Supplements are not FDA regulated, almost 80% of them answered no. Most of them were aware of vitamin overdose, but they weren’t of the fact that dietary supplements are not regulated. One of the survey taker actually wrote that the reason that he, or she stopped taking supplement was nausea, and vomiting that was side effect from the supplement. Afterwards, I asked my colleagues if they were bothered by supplements not being regulated by the FDA, and surprisingly, most of them weren’t concerned, or interested in hearing more about it, and only couple of them showed interest in finding more about the subject. Well, my initial reaction was almost the same; I also didn’t want to believe it at first. Assuming that the majority is uneducated when it comes to Dietary Supplements, no wonder the Dietary Supplement industry is booming. Vitamins shops are conveniently located everywhere for us, the consumers. For the past two years, or more correctly since I found out the truth behind Dietary Supplements, I have started observing how the knowledge of supplements is being brought to us. What I noticed is that consumers get bombarded with vague facts about the wholesome goodness in supplements. Government, doctors, and journalist alike are trying to send massage to the consumers about possible danger. In the end, the message that sticks with us is actually the one that we hear the most, and that is the voice of Dietary Supplement manufacturers/distributors. Naturally people would like to know if anything good comes from taking supplements? The truth is, there is a lot of good in those supplements. The actual problem is arising in the message that we are getting about the goodness in supplement. The truth is the supplements are supposed to be helping people that are not able to get vitamins, or minerals from regular diet. Those people are pregnant women’s, vegetarians’, and people with medical problems. Dietary Supplements could be compared to the drugs, like Penicillin. Penicillin is antibiotic that treats certain infections, and it is drug that most of people had taken at some point of time, but that doesn’t mean that we need to take it constantly to prevent future infections. People like me should stick to regular diet, and eat variety, but Dietary Supplement industry used the actual good, and made it into something that is not. Advertising of the same is tweaking the fact that not everybody is in the need of supplement, and especially if it wasn’t recommended by the doctor. I know for a fact that there are supplement that are FDA approved like prenatal vitamins because I was taking them, but they need to prescribed by your doctor. The fact that you can get FDA approved supplements only through prescription just adds to the fact that health administration doesn’t take it lightly when it comes to supplement intake. If Health and Human Services is aware of the fact that the supplements may cause a danger, and also that in most cases there is no need to take supplements why don’t they fight it, the same way that Dietary Supplement industry is fighting to sell those products. The actual truth is that the FDA must prove that Dietary
Supplements cause potential danger before they can ban the product from the market. The saddest thing is that usually their proof is based on the actual fact that the products killed, or made people sick. One of reasons why ephedra, which is the over the counter dietary supplement for weight loss was banned from the market, was the death of Baltimore Orioles pitcher. According to the David Stout article in
New York Times, the debate was going on between Dietary Supplement manufacturers, and Health and Human Services for couple of years in regards to ephedra. Manufacturers were strongly standing behind their claims that amphetamine-like substance would not created any health risks if they were taken properly. “Misuse of amphetamine may cause sudden death and serious cardiovascular adverse events.”(ADDERALL®).

Following death of Baltimore Orioles pitcher was news briefing where Tommy Thompson, the secretary of Health and Human Services expressed following; "Today's action tells consumers that the time to stop using these products is now. They are simply too risky to be used, whether by people who want to lose weight, or be elite athletes seeking to enhance their performance, or by youngsters who want to be like these athletes."(David Stout).” Under federal regulations, the ban will take effect in 60 days. But Dr. Mark McClellan, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said responsible manufacturers should stop selling ephedra at once. "Everyone involved in marketing ephedra should be on notice that as soon as the rule becomes effective, we intend to shut you down," he said (David Stout). 60 days! Don’t you think that a lot can happen in 60 days? You need to do something right now! What is the massage of this whole mess that has been going on in regards to ephedra? How many people read, or heard anything about this particular ephedra danger? I didn’t conduct any survey when it comes to that particular question, but I brought it up on couple of different occasions. Usually almost everyone could have vaguely remembered something about some kind of Dietary Supplement danger, but nobody was able to name it with exception of seniors that are usually staying on top of everything that is going around. Doesn’t that show us that we are not being educated, and well informed about Dietary Supplements? Doesn’t that pose danger to everyone around us? Why isn’t FDA more powerful in saying what is, and what should enter our market? The FDA is powerless, and they can only step up once they have proof that Dietary Supplements caused illness, or death, and even then they have to prove it. Usually the news briefing would follow, there would be a couple of articles in a newspaper, and it would get mentioned on TV news channel. In the mean time everyone is caught up in a hectic fast paced life thinking how to pay the mortgage, who will drop off, or pick up the little ones from school, or day care, and nobody has time to hear what is going on. Between football practices, a gym class for little once, and carrier goals we all have, our nation is expecting the government to worry about products being released on our market. Who dropped the ball in 1990? Why was the regulation for Dietary Supplements that was in effect prior to 1990 reversed? I didn’t go in depths to answering this question, but probably nobody was expecting this. Therefore my next question is; where is this magic pill madness taking us? Just by looking at the most recent standards passed by FDA in 2007 I am assuming that we as humans will have to learn from our own experiences. The reason I said that is that this regulation was passed only because there were inconsistency found in the supplements on the market, and even that regulation is not going to apply to all manufacturers until 2010 (Reuters). Also, ephedra was banned after the death of Baltimore Orioles pitcher. There have been proven facts (Bakalar Nicholas) that some products on the market made false claims about the content in the supplements they were selling. Hopefully we are yet going to see more and more standards that involve dietary supplements, and maybe one day Dietary Supplements will be regulated the way they were before 1990, and they way they should have stayed regulated all along. Until that day comes I will do everything I can to inform people around me about possible danger, and I will stick to the old fashion way of vitamin intake.

Works Cited

"ADDERALL®." RxList The Internet Drug Index. 3 Aug. 2008 .

Bakalar, Nicholas. "Regimens: Diet Supplement Seen as Risky for Some Users." The New York Times. 19 Feb. 2008. 30 July 2008 .

"Dangers of vitamins." Are Vitamins Dangerous? 06 Aug. 2006. 30 July 2008 .

"Dietary Supplements." Overview. 13 May 2008. 30 July 2008 .

Kimpel, Paul A. "HISTORY OF DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS." Dietary Supplements. Apr. 2000. 30 July 2008 .

Reuters. "F.D.A. Approves Vitamin Rules." The New York Times. 23 June 2007. 30 July 2008 . Stout, David. "U.S. Bans Dietary Supplement Linked to Number of Deaths." The New York Times. 30 Dec. 2003. 31 July 2008 .