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Big problems with popular turmeric and echinacea supplements

Posted 08 November 2019

Lead? Aerobic bacteria? Misleading labels? Consumer Reports tested popular brands of the widely used supplements; here’s what they found.

TreeHugger.com

In a perfect world, humans would be able to rely on plant-based remedies and in doing so, improve health while reducing reliance on pharmaceuticals. Mother Nature is a brilliant doctor, one whom we’ve relied on for millennia.

Unfortunately, the botanical supplement industry is not so perfect. There is a notable lack of regulation – as in, the FDA has to prove a supplement is not safe before they can remove it from the market – and as such has created an industry rife with shenanigans. That some 23,000 people a year end up in the emergency room after taking a supplement says a lot. (This isn’t to say that all supplement makers are unscrupulous – not at all; but with little oversight, there is room for Read the rest

Any benefit for fish oil, omega-3 supplements or curcumin?

Posted 09 March 2018

“Fish oil or omega-3 supplements won’t help people with heart disease,” writes nutritionist Alice Callahan in Lifehacker. Her source is a recent JAMA Cardiology meta-study that looked at 10 trials with a total of 77, 917 participants and found that “supplementation with marine-derived omega-3 fatty acids for a mean of 4.4 years had no significant association with reductions in fatal or nonfatal coronary heart disease or any major vascular events.”

For years and years, people have sworn by the yellowing agent in turmeric as an exceptionally potent natural remedy for almost everything. But as Derek Lowe noted last year, “no curcumin trial has ever reported any convincing positive results.” 

Read these extracts in the context of the full article published in Reason

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