{"id":9193,"date":"2019-09-22T20:03:56","date_gmt":"2019-09-22T20:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/?p=9193"},"modified":"2019-09-23T17:52:48","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T17:52:48","slug":"beware-of-quick-fixes-for-weight-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/fall-2019\/beware-of-quick-fixes-for-weight-loss\/","title":{"rendered":"Health: Beware of Quick Fixes for Weight Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>\u201chis year, I\u2019m going to lose some weight.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you find yourself making this common resolution, know this: Many so-called \u201cmiracle\u201d weight-loss supplements and foods, including teas and coffees, don\u2019t live up to their claims. Worse, they can cause serious harm, said Food and Drug Administration regulators.<\/p>\n

The FDA has found hundreds of products that are marketed as dietary supplements but actually contain hidden active ingredients\u2014components that make a medicine effective against a specific illnesses\u2014contained in prescription drugs, unsafe ingredients that were in drugs that have been removed from the market, or compounds that have not been adequately studied in humans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the product contains a drug or other ingredient that isn\u2019t listed as an ingredient, we become especially concerned about the safety of the product,\u201d said Dr. James P. Smith, an acting deputy director in FDA\u2019s Office of Drug Evaluation.<\/p>\n

Tainted Products<\/h3>\n

FDA has found weight-loss products tainted with the prescription drug ingredient sibutramine. This ingredient was in an FDA-approved drug called Meridia, which was removed from the market more than nine years ago because it caused heart problems and strokes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve also found weight-loss products marketed as supplements that contain dangerous concoctions of hidden ingredients, including active ingredients contained in approved seizure medications, blood pressure medications, and antidepressants,\u201d said Jason Humbert, an FDA senior regulatory manager.<\/p>\n

Most recently, FDA has found a number of products marketed as dietary supplements that contain fluoxetine, the active ingredient found in Prozac, a prescription drug marketed for the treatment of depression and other conditions. Another product contained triamterene, a powerful diuretic\u2014sometimes known as \u201cwater pills\u201d\u2014that can have serious side-effects and should only be used under the supervision of a health care professional.<\/p>\n

Many of these tainted products are imported, sold online, and heavily promoted on social media sites. Some can also be found on store shelves.<\/p>\n

And if you\u2019re about to take what you think of as \u201cnatural\u201d dietary supplements, such as bee pollen or Garcinia cambogia, you should be aware that FDA has found that some of these products also contain hidden active ingredients contained in prescription drugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only natural way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you take in,\u201d said Smith. That means a combination of healthful eating and physical activity.<\/p>\n

Dietary Supplements Linked to Severe Health Events in Children and Young Adults<\/h3>\n

Most recently, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health released information on the effects of dietary supplements on young people in particular.<\/p>\n

Consumption of dietary supplements sold for weight loss, muscle building, and energy was associated with increased risk for severe medical events in children and young adults compared to consumption of vitamins, according to new research led by The Chan School. The study found that, compared with vitamins, these types of supplements were linked to nearly three times as many severe medical outcomes in young people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe FDA has issued countless warnings about supplements sold for weight loss, muscle building or sport performance, sexual function, and energy, and we know these products are widely marketed to and used by young people. So what are the consequences for their health? That\u2019s the question we wanted to answer,\u201d said lead author Flora Or, a researcher with The Chan School\u2019s Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders. The study was published online on June 5, 2019, in The Journal of Adolescent Health.<\/p>\n

The researchers looked at adverse event reports between January 2004 and April 2015 in the FDA\u2019s Adverse Event Reporting System on the food and dietary supplements database. They analyzed the relative risk for severe medical events, such as death, disability, and hospitalization in individuals aged between 0 and 25 years that were linked to the use of dietary supplements sold for weight loss, muscle building, or energy compared to vitamins.<\/p>\n

They found that there were 977 single-supplement-related adverse event reports for the target age group. Of those, approximately 40% involved severe medical outcomes, including death and hospitalization. Supplements sold for weight loss, muscle building, and energy were associated with almost three times the risk for severe medical outcomes compared to vitamins. Supplements sold for sexual function and colon cleanse were associated with approximately two times the risk for severe medical outcomes compared to vitamins.<\/p>\n

Senior author Dr. S. Bryn Austin, a professor in The Chan School\u2019s department of social and behavioral sciences, noted that reputable physicians do not recommend the use of the type of dietary supplements analyzed in this study. Many of these products have been found to be adulterated with prescription pharmaceuticals, banned substances, heavy metals, pesticides, and other dangerous chemicals. And other studies have linked weight-loss and muscle-building supplements with stroke, testicular cancer, liver damage, and even death.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can we continue to let the manufacturers of these products and the retailers who profit from them play Russian roulette with America\u2019s youth?\u201d Austin said. \u201cIt is well past time for policymakers and retailers to take meaningful action to protect children and consumers of all ages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sources: FDA.gov and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why quick and easy is not always better when it comes to health choices<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9261,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[113,114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2019","category-fall-2019-columns"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9193"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9495,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9193\/revisions\/9495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}