Health Options
Before you buy a weight-loss product to dispose of holiday weight gain, you should be aware of a common ingredient. Type the word "ephedra" into an Internet search engine such as www.google.com, and you will get more than 100,000 hits, including a mixture of herbal supplement companies and related trade organizations, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and law firms looking for clients who believe they have been harmed by an ephedra product. FDA cautions about ephedra
The herb ephedra (alias mahuang) contains stimulants with names such as ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, common ingredients in a variety of asthma and cold medications.
The Ephedra Education Council, sponsored by the American Herbal Products Association, claims that the herb has been used safely for more than 5,000 years. The council estimates that more than 3 billion doses of ephedra products are consumed each year.
The FDA has questioned ephedra's safety. After recording more than 800 adverse-event reports associated with products containing ephedra, the FDA proposed a rule limiting the dosage and requiring product labels stating that the supplement should not be used for longer than seven days.
These recommendations were questioned by ephedra proponents, and the FDA requested additional input, which included the evaluation of 140 adverse-event reports.
It was found that 31 percent of the cases were "definitely or probably related" to the use of supplements containing ephedra. The FDA review waves a significant red flag, strongly indicating that some people can be harmed by ephedra.
Proponents of ephedra argue that the number of people adversely affected is rather small. That may be the case, but the industry could stand to clean up its act, according to a study led by Dr. Bill Gurley of the University of Arkansas.
His study found that the amount of active ephedra components listed on the labels of many products was far different from what was actually in the bottle. The ephedra alkaloid content of 20 different products ranged from zero percent to more than 150 percent of label claims.
To encourage more responsible marketing, the American Herbal Products Association recommends a warning label indicating that the product is unsuitable for those with a wide range of medical conditions, from high blood pressure to glaucoma.
Also, it is recommended that ephedra not be combined with other medications and that use should be halted and a health-care professional called immediately if rapid heartbeat, dizziness, severe headache, shortness of breath or other similar symptoms occur. It is further noted that exceeding the recommended dose will not improve results and may cause serious harm.
Obviously, the line between drugs and herbal products is more blurred than most people realize.
But how well do these products really work? We have heard claims that ephedra supplements may boost the resting metabolic rate by 4 percent. A safer, health-promoting way to burn up as many calories is to walk or jog 1.5 miles. The choice is yours.
Health Events
Joannie Dobbs, Ph.D., C.N.S., is a food and nutrition consultant
and owner of Exploring New Concepts, a nutritional consulting firm.
She is also responsible for the nutritional analyses
indicated by an asterisk in this section.Alan Titchenal, Ph.D., C.N.S., is a sports nutritionist in the
Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Science,
University of Hawaii-Manoa.