Sean Moloughney09.01.10
By now you’ve probably heard about the Consumer Reports investigation that identified the “Dirty Dozen” list of dangerous supplement ingredients. But there’s a hidden gem buried in the report that, not surprisingly, didn’t make headlines.
The infamous list of scary supplements includes aconite, bitter orange, chaparral, colloidal silver, coltsfoot, comfrey, country mallow, germanium, greater celandine, kava, lobelia and yohimbe. Honestly, I had to look up a couple of these ingredients to find out what they are, but given Matt Lauer’s reaction on the “Today Show” you’d think they were as common as vitamin C, or maybe Lipitor or Viagra.
In reality, according to Nutrition Business Journal, cumulative sales of these 12 ingredients make up less than 0.2% of supplement market sales. If depicted on a pie chart, I probably wouldn’t be able to see such a thin slice. So forgive me if I save my frightened face for a fiasco to be named later. On to the buried treasure…
The Consumer Reports investigation yielded another list, which included 11 supplements considered to be safe and effective: calcium, cranberry, fish oil, glucosamine sulfate, lactase, lactobacillus, psyllium, pygeum, SAMe, St. John’s Wort and vitamin D. Now these are ingredients I know. And I’m positive this list represents a much larger piece of the pie.
For example, the omega 3 supplement market in the U.S. has grown into a $1 billion enterprise. And according to data from the Natural Marketing Institute, Harleysville, PA, 23% of consumers in the general population reported usage of omega 3 supplements in 2009, compared to 14% in 2004.
So what separates omega 3 fish oil from the rest of the pack? Like calcium, cranberry, glucosamine and the others identified by Consumer Reports, omega 3s have strong scientific backing. And that’s probably a gross understatement. It seems every week there’s a new study about how omega 3s may be beneficial for another aspect of health. This is why we called omega 3s “Industry All-Stars” in our September issue. You can find my feature story here.
The omega 3 market is still maturing, in much the same way the broader supplement industry still has some growing up to do. Unfortunately, adulteration is still an issue that requires diligence from industry and government. But there are dangers everywhere. More than half a billion eggs from two Iowa producers were recalled in August after a salmonella outbreak. Does that mean you should live in fear of chickens?
Michael McGuffin, president of the American Herbal Products Association, Silver Spring, MD, said the Consumer Reports article “is attempting to draw broad conclusions about the regulation of dietary supplements based on anecdotes related to products that do not represent the mainstream.”
The positive, safe and effective supplements identified in the report outweigh the negative, “dangerous” ones in terms of sales and science. Maybe that’s why the supplement industry continues to prosper, despite what consumer-based media fixate on.