YouTube video (Aaron Hartman, MD) discussing mislabeling in dietary supplements. Cites a JAMA study of ~30 products where 13 contained undeclared ingredients and 17 were mislabeled; explains supplements aren’t regulated like drugs by the FDA (labels may not reflect content), highlights risks with melatonin (overdosing in children, physiologic melatonin ~0.67 mg) and reports that ~25% of some calcium supplements sold in pharmacies contain lead. Promises later guidance on how to vet supplements.
Chapters
People are supposed to look at the label before they buy a supplement. Correct? You want to see what's in the supplement to make sure it's what you're looking for and there's no added ingredients. What if the label wasn't accurate? What if the label you're looking at actually didn't say what was in the product? I'm referencing an article below from the Journal of the American association, jama, which is one of the top two medical journals in the United States. They did a study looking at about 30 products and what they found was concerning. They found that in 30 products, 13 of the products had extra things that weren't in the label and 17 of the products were mislabeled. Now, you might be wondering how this even happens. Well, the reason is because supplements are not regulated by the fda. As far as what is on the labels, the only thing regulated by the FDA is that they can't make medical claims. The supplement can't say, cures heart disease, treats diabetes, helps raise your testosterone, helps with female hormones. They cannot actually say those things, but the regulations don't prevent them from saying inaccurate things in the label that aren't in there or putting extra things in, which is concerning. When you work with a supplement manufacturer, you buy a purchase from someplace, you want to make sure the manufacturer is sticking to standard good practices. They're called GPC Good Processing Standards. You want to make sure they're following that. This study published in JAMA showed the majority of the supplement, and again, there's a small sample, but over half what they tested. 13 and 17 out of 30 either had stuff that wasn't on the label in there or the label was misrepresented. What was in there. What's even more concerning about this, you might get approximately melatonin for kids to help your kids sleep at night, right? You want one milligram, maybe two for young kids. Physiologic level of melatonin is less than 1 milligram, about 0.67 ish milligrams. So you don't really want high levels of melatonin if you're taking them. There actually was another study which I'm referencing below, where they're seeing a significant number of kids are actually getting toxic on melatonin. It's one thing that's important. Even safe supplements like melatonin, if you're getting 10, 20 times what's actually on the label in your body, particularly with kids, it can actually cause agitation, sleep disruption. One of the things with melatonin is Melatonin actually lowers your cortisol. So when you're sleeping at night, you want your cortisol down and your melatonin up. Well, if you you're over melatonized, you got too much melatonin, you can actually suppress the cortisol too much. This is where some people will feel groggy, sleepy in the morning, and some people actually feel anxious or jittery from it. Maybe there's people having issues because they're getting too much melatonin. Again, this is published. FDA has looked at this. Consumer labs have looked at this. There's a whole bunch of places have looked at these issues. It's a big issue. Later on, we'll talk about how you can personally vet your products, make sure you're getting a clean, safe product. But it's important to know when you're purchasing things like Amazon, ebay, when you're getting things, even your local pharmacies. One thing I've discussed in other previous podcasts as well as blogs is that about 25% of calcium that's bought in a typical pharmacy has lead in it. So all of a sudden, getting calcium at your local pharmacy, you actually might be getting a little bit of lead. So what can you do to make sure your supplements are clean, safe? We'll be talking about that a little later on, so keep on watching, stay tuned and we'll talk to you soon.
