This news can be difficult to process.
A new study from the University of Michigan estimates that 15.6 million American adults regularly take herbal and dietary supplements that could be toxic to their livers.
The six supplements are turmeric, green tea, ashwagandha, black cohosh, garcinia cambogia and red yeast rice.
“We were not aware that so many people were taking these supplements,” Dr. Alisa Likhitsup, clinical assistant professor of medicine and lead author of the study, which was published this week in JAMA Network Open.
These supplements seem to be most popular among older, educated white women who turn to them for arthritis, fatigue, and menopausal symptoms.
Almost 9,700 adults were surveyed between 2017 and 2020 about the consumption of supplements in a 30-day period.
Among the survey group, turmeric was most popular (3.46%), followed by green tea (1.01%), ashwagandha and black cohosh (0.38%), garcinia cambogia (0.27%) and red yeast rice products (0.19 %).
70% of garcinia cambogia users say they take the supplement for weight loss, while 90% of those who take red yeast rice do so to try to improve heart health.
Millions of people around the world take supplements daily to improve general health, boost immunity and treat minor ailments. Supplement sales in the United States exceeded $150 billion last year.
Over 80,000 of these substances—such as multivitamins, minerals and vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids, and calcium products—are available in retail stores or over the Internet.
Researchers noted that hepatotoxicity, or drug-induced liver damage, is on the rise, with supplements accounting for 20% of these cases in the latest data. They were only responsible for 7% two decades ago.
The study authors said the most common botanicals in these cases were turmeric, kratom, green tea extract and garcinia cambogia., leading to “potentially serious and even fatal liver damage”.
Dosage and frequency of use were not specified in the new study.
The study indicates that a large number of dietary supplements have well-defined ingredients on the label. However, an estimated 5% to 12% is from plants, complex botanicals with many ingredients.
Chemical analyzes for hepatotoxicity often show discrepancies between product labels and detected ingredients.
“In a previous study, we found that there was a lot of mislabeling of some of these products,” explained Dr. Robert Fontana, a Michigan Medicine hepatologist, professor of medicine and senior author of the study.
“We did analytical chemistry and found about a 50% discrepancy between the listed ingredients on the label and what they actually contained, which is quite alarming,” he added. “If you buy a supplement and it says it has a certain ingredient, it’s really a coin flip if that’s true or not.”
Researchers say frequent mislabeling, along with a lack of government regulation and inadequate medical inquiries about supplement use, make these products a major concern.
They hope doctors will ask patients if they are taking supplements and consider their effects.
“We’re not trying to create an alarm,” Fontana said. “We’re just trying to raise awareness that supplements that people take and buy over the counter have not been tested or necessarily proven to be safe.”
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