The information in this link may be of interest to members who consume dietary supplements; http://news.sciencemag.org/health/20...&utm_src=email

Thanks for the link, Kiwi. People need to understand the risks of taking some types of supplements. I think the keyword in that article is "contaminated". Another might be "excessive dosing" as in the use of Ephedra. Notice the names of the supplements quoted as problematic... fancy eye catching names.
You know where I live there was a radio show with a prominent medical internist on it, who recommended ephedra to just about everyone, even cardiac patients. A friend of mine came to me about her husband's doctor putting him on it. Her husband had had a heart attack. I in no uncertain terms explained the risks of that to her! So he did not in the end use ephedra. This was before the media coverage of the abuses of this drug/herb, too.

China has long sold contaminated products. They have added digoxin, Viagra, phenylbutazone and other drugs to their herbs for years. There are many articles on the net about this.
This is to pump up the response for the person using whatever it is, and to generate more sales.

Herbs in general should be used with extreme care. It took years for the drug interactions with St.John's Wort to become understood, and now we see warnings on medications to not use with St John's Wort, etc. Herbs are "little" drugs and can be very dangerous when used improperly or at all for certain patients. They can affect the liver and the metabolism of RX medications significantly.

People should research their products thoroughly before considering using them. A high price, or a slick website does not guarantee safety. Linus Pauling Institute, some other universities, and NIH and PubMed are good places to start when learning about a substance/supplement.

All supplement products should have exact labeling about what is in them and how much. The quality makers also include allergen listings. "free" of gluten, soy, lactose" is one example.
"made on equipment that processes nuts" is another. GMP is a US term that assures "good manufacturing practices" and USP may appear on labels.(but not all substances are in the USP) This means the content conforms to purity as spelled out in the US Pharmacopeia which is a chemical reference book that lists purity for many medically used substances.

mrsD, adding to your list of reliable sources of information, the Cochrane Collaboration (http://www.cochrane.org/) is also worth checking out.

It is a not-for-profit group of health professionals, epidemiologists and biostatisticians which accepts no funding from any private source.

What it does is to pool the results of clinical trials of the effectiveness of many health/medical procedures and then do a systematic review/meta-analysis (different terms for the same idea) of them - assessing how convincing the evidence is. Sometimes it turns out that the meta-analysis shows that there is good evidence that a procedure is effective, other times it turns out that the evidence is poor.

Cochrane is searchable and may help members to decide how strong the evidence is for the efficacy of a procedure that a health professional may recommend.

I always check on the manufacturing process for the companies I buy from. I look for organic, nongmo and love to see a 3rd party audit.

I am pretty confident using Now, Ortho and Thorne to name a few.

Also, I did nutrition panels to see what I needed which helped me determine the kinds and doses of micronutrients and antioxidants. After 6 months I repeated the study. I was able to gage how I felt along with the findings, then eliminated some and made adjustments to others.

I would include teas too. They are using pesticides that are banned throughout the world and yet we are importing and consuming the very teas here. Go figure.

I want to say a special thank you for pounding the methyl-b message Mrs D.. I finally got it last year and for the first time in 6 years I can walk on my heels and wear them again too!

One of the old departments I used to work in does pesticide testing on food products. And definitely teas are something to scrutinize. I won't drink yerba mate tea anymore.

I also think Thorne is a great company and they are doing things the right way. I'd jump at chance to work for them.

I've had many success with supplements I started working with over 25 yrs ago when I found the "alternative way" to my health. I knew only conventional medicine for the most part but with harm and "doubt" I changed my path and cannot go back.

I've posted on various areas my real successes with immune system, sleep, bone health, hormones, depression and continue to work with many who have the same mindset as me.

There are handfuls of people like me, big handfuls of those who dabble in alternatives and many who don't go near them. Alternatives work in my life. And I buy quality supplements. And I do eat quality foods. Caroline

A good word is complimentary to what we already do eat, sleep etc. I just had a very nice conversation with a major supplement company here in the U.S., Jarrow. I trust their products and their information when I've called them for their support.

I called about Omega 3's and the value of them and if everyone took good fish oils could be less heart attacks, strokes etc and not the need for many heart drugs. Or if people ate quality fish 2-3 times per week that could work. But I don't and in this country I don't know many who do concentrate on good sea foods intake.

I agree about quality fish.

For me dinner a couple of times a week is microwaved salmon, brown rice and some vegetables - good natural sources of macro- and micro-nutrients.

Kiwi, when I make salmon it's fresh caught and sauted in wonderful coconut oil. I've never bought into the micro oven world. My local market stocks fresh caught pretty often.