Aaron Hartman, MDFunctional Medicine Specialist | Clinical Researcher

Hidden Drugs in Herbal Supplements?

13 Nov 2023 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:48

Aaron Hartman, MD (speaker) warns that many herbal supplements have pharmaceutical-like effects and can interact unpredictably with prescribed medications. He cautions against sourcing supplements from unvetted marketplaces (e.g., Amazon, eBay) because products may be adulterated, and states he uses only tested/vetted supplements for his patients (examples: vitamin D, calcium, testosterone, prostate/hormone products). He promises to describe methods to personally vet products later in the video.

Chapters

Herbs do work, they actually do have pharmaceutical drug like effects. When you start mixing pharmaceuticals with these things, you don't really know what kind of side effects you're going to get with those. That's the reason why whatever physician or provider you're working with should be aware or at least have a database they can refer to make sure there's no interactions occurring. But if you're buying your stuff from Amazon or ebay, odds are you're getting it and you don't even know it. One of the things I personally do for our patients and I'll recommend something, whether it's for vitamin D, calcium, whether it's for testosterone, whether it's for prostate issues or hormone issues, I'm only using products that have been tested and vetted. They've been tested for purity but have not had adulterants put into them. But the point is if you're getting your stuff from ebay or Amazon, it's kind of risky. I will be talking towards the end things that you can do if you personally want to vet your products and things we do to vet our products for our patients.