They may seem like "easy fixes," but multivitamins, dietary supplements and energy-boosting pills may not be the safe cures they promise to be. A new federal study, completed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in association with the Food and Drug Administration and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, reports that supplements were the reasons behind approximately 23,000 emergency room visits each year.
From heart problems—which include irregular heartbeat and chest pain—to choking on pills or even accidental ingesting of pills by children, the complications with the supplements show that the popular pills can have seriously adverse effects.
Weight loss and energy pills—the most common supplements taken—were behind the majority of the visits. By studying the emergency visits throughout a 10-year period of time, researchers investigated the ones where dietary supplements were involved. Patients reported severe allergic reactions, nausea, vomiting and heart troubles, from having taken supplements. But as one doctor notes, the statistics may not even scratch the surface.
"This is just a sampling of emergency rooms around the country," says Mark Moyad, MD, MPh, author of The Supplement Handbook. "Patients who have side-effects from supplements don't always think of emergency rooms. They think of urgent care or their primary care doctors. If [this study] is not capturing all of the urgent cares and minute clinics and visits to the internists or primary care doctors, that number is much higher."
In fact, as the study notes, the 23,000 patients who visited the emergency room are just one-tenth of one percent of the number of people who use supplements. But as Moyad points out, it could be much higher.
"This has been a long time coming and I think the real number are a lot larger than this," Moyad adds.
So if you're considering adding a supplement to your diet, follow Moyad's top recommendations for supplement care:
1. Read the Ingredient List
"When you look at a lot of products on sale today, they have a list of ingredients," says Moyad. In reality, your supplement should not have a blend of ingredients. "If you go to a health foods store and buy melatonin, for example, you're buying melatonin," Moyad continues. "But when you go to a CVS or a Walgreens, a lot of the products say 'melatonin' on the front, but have a mixture of ingredients companies have put together to create a proprietary or unique blend. The problem with those blends is that they've never been tested on human beings."
2. Read the Studies
With your doctor—or individually—look up the actual study that proves a specific supplement should be used. "By doing a little bit of homework and looking up the paper, you can reward the research that went throuth the study," Moyad says. "The supplement industry is a $35 billion business and there are are many fly-by-night companies, so looking up the facts and specific ingredients used in a study, you can get the best products."
3. Get Verified
"Don't be shy to look on the supplement's website, call the company or look on the bottle for some kind of label," Moyad adds. "Look for items that have the NSF stamp. It's a third-party control system—used by the NFL—that audits supplement companies and it means that your product has gone through some scrutiny."
4. Set a Higher Standard
"This should up the threshold of what people should require of their supplements," Moyad says. "Instead of getting information, people are being clinical trials of one and they're signing up to be a clinical project." That means speaking to a doctor, confirming that a supplement will deliver on its promises and not buying pills simply thanks to their celebrity endorsements. "Take an extra effort," he adds. "Supplements can really change your life if they're done correctly."
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Dr. Mark Hyman: 7 Ways to Tackle Lyme Disease
50 Powerful Sources of Plant-Based Protein
"Now that we are spending more time at home, we are noticing the large number of delivery vans and lorries driving through cities," said Netherlands environment minister Stientje van Veldhoven, announcing plans to ban all but zero-emission deliveries in 14 cities.
"The agreements we are setting down will ensure that it will be a matter of course that within a few years, supermarket shelves will be stocked, waste will be collected, and packages will arrive on time, yet without any exhaust fumes and CO2 emissions," she added.
She expects 30 cities to announce zero emission urban logistics by this summer. City councils must give four years' notice before imposing bans as part of government plans for emission-free road traffic by 2050. The city bans aim to save 1 megaton of CO2 each year by 2030.
Help to Change
To encourage transport organizations to go carbon-free, the government is offering grants of more than US$5,900 to help businesses buy or lease electric vehicles. There will be additional measures to help small businesses make the change.
The Netherlands claims it is the first country in the world to give its cities the freedom to implement zero-emission zones. Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht already have "milieuzones" where some types of vehicles are banned.
Tilburg, one of the first wave of cities imposing the Dutch ban, will not allow fossil-fuelled vehicles on streets within its outer ring road and plans to roll out a network of city-wide electric vehicle charging stations before the ban comes into effect in 2025.
"Such initiatives are imperative to improve air quality. The transport of the future must be emission-free, sustainable, and clean," said Tilburg city alderman Oscar Dusschooten.
Europe Takes Action
Research by Renault shows that many other European cities are heading in the same direction as the Netherlands, starting with Low Emission Zones of which Germany's "Umweltzone" were pioneers. More than 100 communes in Italy have introduced "Zonas a traffico limitato."
Madrid's "zona de baja emisión" bans diesel vehicles built before 2006 and petrol vehicles from before 2000 from central areas of the city. Barcelona has similar restrictions and the law will require all towns of more than 50,000 inhabitants to follow suit.
Perhaps the most stringent restrictions apply in London's Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), which charges trucks and large vehicles up to US$137 a day to enter the central area if they do not comply with Euro 6 emissions standards. From October, the ULEZ is being expanded.
Cities are responsible for around 75% of CO2 emissions from global final energy use, according to the green thinktank REN21 - and much of these come from transport. Globally, transport accounts for 24% of world CO2 emissions.
The Rise of Online Shopping
Part of the reason for traffic in urban areas is the increase in delivery vehicles, as online shopping continues to grow. Retailer ecommerce sales are expected to pass $5billion in 2022, according to eMarketer.
The World Economic Forum's report The Future of the Last-Mile Ecosystem, published in January 2020, estimates that e-commerce will increase the number of delivery vehicles on the roads of the world's 100 largest cities by 36% by 2030.
If all those vehicles burn fossil fuels, the report says emissions will increase by 32%. But switching to all-electric delivery vehicles would cut emissions by 30% from current levels as well as reducing costs by 25%, the report says.
Other solutions explored in the report include introducing goods trams to handle deliveries alongside their passenger-carrying counterparts and increased use of parcel lockers to reduce the number of doorstep deliveries.
Reposted with permission from the World Economic Forum.