When is an herbal tea a safe and effective sleep aid, and when is that same tea a risky pharmaceutical choice? Health care professionals face such questions daily, and a University of Arkansas researcher cautions that they may need to acquire advanced clinical skills in order to assure patient safety.
Are soy products healthy additions to a person?s diet, safe alternatives to hormone-replacement therapy or cancer-causing agents? The answer, according to University of Illinois food science and human nutrition professor William Helferich, is, “It depends.”
A glucosamine-like dietary supplement has been found to suppress the damaging autoimmune response seen in multiple sclerosis and type-1 diabetes mellitus, according to University of California, Irvine health sciences researchers.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is advising consumers not to purchase or use “True Man” or “Energy Max” products promoted and sold as dietary supplements throughout the United States. Both products — touted as sexual enhancement products and as treatments for erectile dysfunction (ED) — are illegal drug products that contain potentially harmful, undeclared ingredients.
Sales of herbal dietary supplements have skyrocketed by 100 percent in the United States during the last 10 years, but most people don?t consider evidence-based indications before using them, according to a University of Iowa study published in this month?s Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
The Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today announced a grant to Iowa State University to study botanicals used as ingredients in dietary supplements. A multidisciplinary research team will study Hypericum (St. John?s wort), Prunella (Self-heal), and several types of Echinacea (for example, Purple Coneflower) for their anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties.
Recent findings that the widely-used herbal supplement Saint John?s wort could dramatically affect the absorption and metabolism of many prescription and non-prescription drugs raised concerns that other popular herbal supplements might cause similar changes, thus significantly altering drugs? therapeutic or toxic effects.
Those phytochemicals ? natural plant-based compounds that give fruits and vegetables a reputation as healthy food ? could be unhealthy if consumed in high doses in dietary supplements, teas or other preparations, scientists in New Jersey have concluded after a review of studies on the topic.
Americans consume more than $4 billion worth of St. John?s wort, echinacea, Ginkgo biloba and other herbal products each year in hopes of improving their health, memory and even their sex lives. But are these products effective, or even safe?
Researcher Dr. Susanne Mertens-Talcott of Texas A&M University is looking into how plant-based phytochemicals, including antioxidants and herbal supplements, can be useful in the promotion of health and prevention of chronic diseases.