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| Wild West of Supplements - who is monitoring Your Health ?
Posted: 9/1/2009 3:27:12 PM |
Scientist of what ??? ...He hasn't come forth with his credentials
The Scientists are an influential post-punk band from Perth, Australia,
led by Kim Salmon, initially known as Exterminators and then Invaders.
My background is irrelevant, as is anyone's, within a debate. The only thing that matters is the validity of the propositions.
Would-be experts and untested products feed a $20 billion obsession
with better performance across all levels of sports
You have to explain to us how the industry can extract this amount of money from the general populace, many of whom are repeat customers, if they provide this same populace no value at all. People don't spend their money on goods and services that provide them no satisfaction.
Also, your consistent claim of "untested products" is but a simple distraction. "Testing" a product doesn't make it work and because a product is "untested" doesn't mean that the product is "dangerous" or "adulterated".
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1155395/index.htm
There are exceptionally low barriers to entry into the industry
and the article emphasizes the lack of credentials needed to start
a supplement business via the Internet.
Good. Most people don't wish to pay drug prices for their supplements. Increase the barriers of entry and you drive up the price.
Certificates of Analysis are just useless pieces of paper that can say anything
the bribe maker wants them to say.
Then, by this argument, how can anything ever be trusted? CofA's from any organization have the potential for fraud, even the FDA, so your argument undercuts itself.
If these regulations were enforced there would be none of the issues cited in the article.
Enforced? By the agency that you earlier accused of directly and indirectly harming the public? You can't even maintain consistency in your rants.
You don't like the industry and that alone suffices for your demand of governnment intervention. You don't like the fact that others are allowed to act in ways you disagree with, so regardless of how low the risks are empirically, you project conspiratorial motives onto the industry, and intellectual deficiencies on it's patrons. Facts simply get in the way of your belief. | |
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| Wild West of Supplements - who is monitoring Your Health ?
Posted: 9/1/2009 5:41:54 PM |
Scientist of what ??? ...He hasn't come forth with his credentials
The Scientists are an influential post-punk band from Perth, Australia,
led by Kim Salmon, initially known as Exterminators and then Invaders.
Imagine that! He cites rock bands that might as well be nameless to the rest of the world because I have never heard of them and if we have never heard of them then they don't appeal to the public or people down in Greenwich Village, where all the great punk bands came from or went to. Yet he keeps on coming back to this same thread to talk about something that people would rather use than to sit down and listen to a rock band that the lead singer had to rename 3 times so they might be recognized.
I wonder if you were out there with such zest when the Cabbage Patch dolls hit the market and people were beating the shit out of each other for the last ugly doll sat up on the shelf. Or what about Black Friday, when people get trampled for the sake of getting a $2,000 television for $300.
Give it a rest. You need to load up on lots of colon cleanse. Because this rant of yours is as loaded as your intestines.
Waterboy, please stop the madness. Quit it, you've been beat too many times and you just keep coming back for more. I am about to stick a fork in you-----you're done. | |
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HO2
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Joined: 10/11/2008
Msg: 53 | |
| Wild West of Supplements - who is monitoring Your Health ?
Posted: 9/1/2009 8:21:25 PM | When I come across a worthy opponent the debate will actually start....
consider this only the preliminaries where the chaff falls to the wayside
Vanity knows no bounds,people continually spend money on themselves .
Whether the product actually works is almost irrelevant, they're happy they bought some crap
"""You have to explain to us how the industry can extract this amount of money""
People seem to trust anything with a fancy label and packaging, they're gullible and foolish
"""Most people don't wish to pay drug prices for their supplements.""""
I don't write the 1000's of articles that exist , exposing the rampant irregularity of quality in supplements.
""""your demand of government intervention"""""--"""You don't like the industry """"
Parasitic profiting by duping people into buying products for internal consumption
that are mislabeled and contain undisclosed ingredients and contaminants is unscrupulous.
Perhaps the scientist makes his money this way and defends the practice so vehemently ?
Maybe he's done the actuarial calculations for the empiracally low risks.
IF a company would clearly demonstrate in vitro (on a molecular level) and
in vivo (on a physiological level) effects , they would have a much better chance
of differentiating themselves from the competition.
At the moment it's all hype, marketing, and pulling the wool over peoples eyes.
AN INDUSTRY REAPING 61 BILLION $$$ /YEAR --based on peoples vanity, not science
http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Industry/Supplements-industry-worth-61bn-to-US-economy
Risk assessment incorporates scientific judgment (opinion) and risk management incorporates "components of sound, practical decision making."
The human element exists in both and can be scientific, clinical, political, social, and economic.
It is also inherently psychological, especially when "protection" of public health or public safety is invoked as a rationale for the activity.
The layman's term for this "driving psychological force" is greed. | |
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| Wild West of Supplements - who is monitoring Your Health ?
Posted: 9/1/2009 9:39:46 PM | 
When I come across a worthy opponent the debate will actually start....
consider this only the preliminaries where the chaff falls to the wayside
Now this has turned into a one up game? Most of what you are posting is cut/copy/paste. You are putting yourself out there as if you are the foremost authority on supplements and you don't even look like you have ever entered a gym. The title of this thread should have been "My Wacky View of Supplements--I am monitoring your health".
What if a doctor prescribed something for you because you have an illness that with time will become progressively worse, would you take it? After all, with the high cost of medical insurance, you could or couldn't buy the meds prescribed only to ask the pharmacist to give you something generic. With a generic brand, how do you know that you are getting the same medication? Could you even trust the advice of your PCP and go for a second opinion? What if you don't trust even that? Would you get a third, fourth, or fifth opinion?
For all the things you are saying, people putting faith in an industry that is just becoming bigger with every dollar that we spend, how do you know that what you are reading is the truth? That some blowhard isn't printing things in the magazines, internet just because?
Everybody these days tries to be the one in the back of the crowd, jumping up and down and saying "Oooo, me, me, me!" so that everybody can turn around and take notice and hear what that person were trying to say.
The truth is you don't know. | |
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| Wild West of Supplements - who is monitoring Your Health ?
Posted: 9/1/2009 10:16:24 PM |
Vanity knows no bounds,people continually spend money on themselves .
Whether the product actually works is almost irrelevant, they're happy they bought some crap
"""You have to explain to us how the industry can extract this amount of money""
Even if the product is "worthless" as you claim, the fact that they derive satisfaction from it is all that is required. I guess you are going to tell me that the millions or more that people spend on online dating sites is worthless as well, since such an activity is "unregulated" and possibly dangerous, not to mention the fact that the value it provides the consumer can't be quantified.
People seem to trust anything with a fancy label and packaging, they're gullible and foolish
"""Most people don't wish to pay drug prices for their supplements.""""
Undoubtedly many are. What does this prove? That because you disagree with how they spend their money, you feel you should be able to dictate the terms of their actions?
I don't write the 1000's of articles that exist , exposing the rampant irregularity of quality in supplements.
""""your demand of government intervention"""""--"""You don't like the industry """"
You mean the 1000's of articles that you can't provide that demonstrate any significant harm? Or the one's that merely posit all manner of death and destruction (that never manifest, mind you) if the industry is not heavily regulated?
Parasitic profiting by duping people into buying products for internal consumption
that are mislabeled and contain undisclosed ingredients and contaminants is unscrupulous.
No argument. But the market has progressively weeded out the less scrupulous through lack of repeat business and rewarded those with products of higher quality. Not to mention the network of information that has developed that provides the consumer with increased knowledge of products. All of this has been accomplished without driving up the costs of the products or outright bans, which accomplish nothing but removing choice from the individual.
Perhaps the scientist makes his money this way and defends the practice so vehemently ?
Maybe he's done the actuarial calculations for the empiracally low risks.
I was wondering how long before this logical fallacy would rear its head.
Perhaps you took some of the herbal male enhancement pills and you were still laughed at, thus explaining your vitriole against the supplement industry.
Ad hominems are so fun!!
IF a company would clearly demonstrate in vitro (on a molecular level) and
in vivo (on a physiological level) effects , they would have a much better chance
of differentiating themselves from the competition.
And several companies have done so, but this costs considerable amounts of money. If this was imposed on the whole industry, all that it would accomplish would be to reduce the supply of products to the market and drive up the costs.
At the moment it's all hype, marketing, and pulling the wool over peoples eyes.
AN INDUSTRY REAPING 61 BILLION $$$ /YEAR --based on peoples vanity, not science
It's this kind of absolutist gibberish that discredits the rest of your arguments and demonstrates an ideological slant, not one of reasoned analysis.
Also, what does the total amount of money they generate have to do with anything? Is this your money? What is the "proper" amount they should reap? The large amount generated is indicative of the value people place on such products, regardless of what you think about it.
http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Industry/Supplements-industry-worth-61bn-to-US-economy
Risk assessment incorporates scientific judgment (opinion) and risk management incorporates "components of sound, practical decision making."
The human element exists in both and can be scientific, clinical, political, social, and economic.
It is also inherently psychological, especially when "protection" of public health or public safety is invoked as a rationale for the activity.
The layman's term for this "driving psychological force" is greed.
This last part is incoherent; astonishingly even more than your previous posts. | |
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HO2
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Joined: 10/11/2008
Msg: 56 | |
| Wild West of Supplements - who is monitoring Your Health ?
Posted: 9/1/2009 10:37:22 PM | Everyone likes to shoot at the messenger, instead of where the message originates.
Do you really think I'm the one and only single entity pushing for reform of the industry ?
The supplement industry can learn from the successes and failures
of the regulations that we have for pharmaceuticals
— regulations that have not prevented a great many dangerous drugs from being on the market | |
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| Wild West of Supplements - who is monitoring Your Health ?
Posted: 9/2/2009 6:10:32 AM |
Perhaps you took some of the herbal male enhancement pills and you were still laughed at, thus explaining your vitriole against the supplement industry.
Now THIS makes a lot of sense.
@Waterboy:
Everyone likes to shoot at the messenger, instead of where the message originates.
We also like watching the messenger get shot.
For all this information that you 'pulled' off the internet, where is the actual proof that this information is doing harm to us? The proof is in the pudding as they say, the people that use the supplements and that have little or no effect on them, if anything.
I don't think anyone can be truly sure unless you yourself have gone out and questioned a 1000 people and heard the proof yourself. | |
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HO2
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Joined: 10/11/2008
Msg: 58 | |
| Wild West of Supplements - who is monitoring Your Health ?
Posted: 9/2/2009 8:31:20 AM | ^^^^you ever figure out the difference between HO2 and H2O....guess you flunked chemistry 101
Natural doesn't always mean safe
Exposures linked to the recommended levels of herbs, homeopathic products and other dietary supplements
accounted for 10.3 percent of products reported to the poison centers
— about three times the level seen for most drugs.
Properly researched, regulated, prescribed and properly used drugs are the
fourth most common cause of death – but they are seldom reported.
(Source, Journal of the American Medical Association - Range 90,000 to 160,000 deaths per year.)
Avoidable medical misadventure is the sixth most common cause of death.
(Source, CDC - range 40,000 to 90,000 )
Food poisoning/adverse reactions causes between 5,000 to 9,000 deaths per year. (Source, CDC.)
American Association of Poison Control Centers 2005 statistics
- vitamins, minerals, essential oils, herbs and other supplements,
125,595 calls to the poison control centers
5,334 adverse reactions,
17,843 health care visits,
12,314 medical outcomes.
Since April 2002, five large randomized trials financed by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
---- have found no significant benefit ----
for St. John’s wort against major depression,
echinacea against the common cold,
saw palmetto for enlarged prostate,
the combination of glucosamine and chondroitin for arthritis,
or black cohosh and other herbs for the hot flashes associated with menopause.
I did not do the studies, fund the studies, or compile the data
-- so any other rational person might conclude there exist a concern about the supplement industry.
Perhaps if people took the time,money and effort to buy real food
instead of looking for the convenient, easy way out, quick fix answer for their shortcoming
the industry wouldn't harbor all that greed, deception, and unscrupulousness. | |
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| Wild West of Supplements - who is monitoring Your Health ?
Posted: 9/2/2009 8:10:15 PM | Yes, dammit. One hydrogen atom and two oxygen atoms. But you still look like the Waterboy. Wait a minute, you might come off as one of the Ghostbusters, not sure yet.
So what would you say to the nut who rants about the grand things hoodia seems to do and how he thinks Oprah is God because she wanted to free KFC of their chicken supply and ate it all?
To be honest, I BELIEVE that hoodia is not pure because it's most purest form comes from Africa and can only be purchased when this is in its season and harvested. Now they are coming up with patches. I think that is a joke and the gum that goes with it.
I think big media personalities are just as much to blame for anything and not the supplements when they throw every yo-yo diet out to the public and the supplements that they use only to fall off the wagon and have people look at the supplement industry instead of these people who back the misuse of things.
Oprah is very successful in 99.9% of her endeavors. The least thing she is successful at is weight loss. And anytime she put one out there, people follow her lead only to say it was the supplement industry instead of looking at it for what it was: a fad diet to the Stars. | |
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HO2
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Joined: 10/11/2008
Msg: 60 | |
| Wild West of Supplements - who is monitoring Your Health ?
Posted: 9/2/2009 8:52:18 PM | Cool, some common ground.
As an engineer I also see the statistics for what they are ---many, many supplement items are relatively safe.
Manufacturing production always involves some "other" stuff getting thru the screening process.
100% testing just isn't cost effective, so it's done in batches based on statistical analysis of constraints.
I'm just not comfortable with deceptive practices of not fully disclosing all ingredients,
utilizing sketchy ingredients with bogus import documentation and origin disclosure.
As water supplies around the world are becoming contaminated, the probability
of toxic compounds getting into the "natural" ingredients becomes more real.
America is the land of entrepreneurship, hell we had the Pet Rock craze which I never understood either.
At least the guy didn't really rip anyone off, he told you there was a rock inside. | |
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| Wild West of Supplements - who is monitoring Your Health ?
Posted: 9/3/2009 10:23:01 AM | This country runs on coffee, donuts, and hype. Put a name that goes up in bright lights, and you have a successful product. Fall off the wagon, then the supplement gets blamed and not the person who pushed it to the public.
Jane Fonda was a prime example. Some say she started "the workout craze" because of her superstar status. She was Hanoi Jane the activist, movie star, daughter of a movie star legend, and married to a tycoon. That she was a public figure was more important to people than working out itself. Nobody looked at Jack LaLanne, Joe Weider, or any other pioneers in the fitness world. They looked at her. She made tons of money from this shit until she was exposed as a fluke who didn't work out, never broke a sweat, and had liposuction and everything else done to her under the sun. And where are video tapes now? Collecting dust in a warehouse somewhere because nobody uses VHS anymore.
Keep the media out of this and put real people in sports to endorse what is not hype but the real thing. | |
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| Wild West of Supplements - who is monitoring Your Health ?
Posted: 9/3/2009 11:31:57 AM | | I feel safer with supplements than prescription drugs, since we have all seen the many examples of how the FDA is NOT protecting our health. There are an equal number of effective supplements which are attacked and or removed bc drug co's tell FDA it is somehow bad or a threat to their profits! Here's an example: MGN3 was a supplement made mostly of immune bolstering mushrooms (Reishi, Shitake, maitake). This stuff which boosted immunity like 3,000 percent got quite a reputation for its anti cancer effectiveness. So, what did the FDA do?? Took it off the market. Too much competition from the cancer industry! | |
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| Wild West of Supplements - who is monitoring Your Health ?
Posted: 9/3/2009 11:45:33 AM | This is an interesting thread, actually. And I can appreciate both sides.
Not only did I work in a GNC for quite some time (don't attack yet), I grew up since about the age of 15 with a greater-than-usual fascination with the potentials of dietary supplements. Even as early as 17, I was taking large doses of Ornithine, Arginine and Tryptophan before bed time, giving me, allegedly, a huge boost in growth hormone. Some could say that, at 17, one's going to have large amounts of GH, anyways, but I really did bulk up and get in amazing shape from those days on... and, because of the Trypto, I slept like a baby.
I did a lot of research on both studies and anectodes and exercised my freedom to experiment as intelligently as I could. At about 20, or so, a friend introduced me to Yohimbe, a steroid-like substance from a plant in, I believe it was, Africa. Back then, it wasn't standardized to today's "2% Yohimbine" and, yes, I got jacked up pretty fast and people thought I was taking steroids because my face/jaw started looking "mightier", if you know what I mean.
I experimented with androstendiol. But, unlike many others who just charge right in, I, once again, did my research and found there were differences in "esters"... the stuff commonly available from commercial settings was a bit harsher on the liver and had a greater ability to "spill over" into estrogen, with slight effect on creating "b*tch tits". But there were other esters that did not result in that.
I even experimented with the stuff in nasal solutions.
As crazy as some people, like H02, thought I was, I really did my best to research this stuff from many different angles -- scientific studies, kitchen chemists, magazine-related research, etc. And, I also had a kind of sixth sense about things. In fact, I studied wilderness survival with an Apache scout who explained that animals had a sixth sense about which trees, barks, herbs, flowers, etc, would help with various maladies and that we had that innate sense, too, but, for many, it was asleep.
Well, I believe I had it...
But I understand H02 because when I worked in a GNC, girls with beautiful, lean bodies would come in every month and buy Xenadrine. It wasn't my job to talk them out of it and even if I did, they were just going to go to the next place and get it there. So, instead of turning them off of it, I, at least, guided them how to get some protection and savings. So, I'd have them include a multi-vitamin w/heavy anti oxidants and a gold card so their savings would start the next month, etc etc...
I made a helluva paycheck.
So, yes, H02 is right. Billions are spent out of pocket for no better reason than VANITY... a vanity based on FEAR and SELF-LOATHING... a fear and self-loathing based on BILLION DOLLAR ADVERTISING... billion dollar advertising based on BILLION DOLLAR STUDIES... billion dollar studies based on HOW PEOPLE THINK.
And H02 is also right that, in manufacturing, "other stuff" DOES get into the batch. Standards, for example, don't call for the elimination of rat feces from the buildings in which supplements are manufactured... they just try to hold it to a minimum, otherwise, they'd probably crush the industry. Rats are everywhere.
And about 15 years ago, a tainted batch of Tryptophan, from Japan, killed people because, unlike most supplements, Tryptophan can cross the blood-brain barrier. So, much to peoples' chagrin, Tryptophan was banned for a while. I think it's recently come back but in a different form.
There ARE things that work. And there ARE things that are total garbage. There are things that are OVER-HYPED (5 pages of Hydroxycut advertising made to look like an objective magazine article, etc). There ARE things are potentially dangerous to people.
For example, I once experimented with St Johns Wort to see if it could really affect emotions. It sure did. It took about 3-4 weeks but one day, I found myself extremely emotional about things that were just so miniscule and unimportant to me prior to that. It didn't cease until I discontinued the St Johns Wort and only tapered off.
And there ARE things that require FURTHER AND FURTHER studying to really fine-tune their usefulness so they don't end up in the crapper. For example, not all protein supplements are the same... not even remotely. Some, like whey, are absorbed very quickly and need to be taken within 30-60 min after a workout or else one could end up feeling gassy and bloated. Others, like Casein, are slower-acting and are best taken before workouts and, on non-workout days, for the steady drip of aminos throughout the day. And so on... stuff that most people don't have the time, energy or interest in researching so a lot of their money goes to waste without them ever even knowing.
But all that being said, I would still never give up my freedom to research and take supplements without a fight, opting, instead, for greater education and maybe slightly stricter standards on what companies can say about their products.
In closing, I'm going to share 2 lists. One list is what I've considered to be the top 5 most important supplements for people working out; the other list is what I currently take for my own purposes.
Top 5 Supplements for People Who Work Out
1. Whey Protein
2. Creatine (muscle, not water, gains will remain after stoppage);
3. Glutamine
4. Multi-Vitamin (to ensure all elements for optimal metabolism);
5. Joint Support Formula - they do work as well as NSAIDS but are less damaging
What I take
1. Molecularly Distilled Fish Oil;
2. Ester-C
3. Alpha-Lipoic Acid (recycles Vitamin C)
4. CoQ10 - spark of the heart
5. Resveratrol Concentrate (powerful anti-oxidant, anti-aging)
6. Multi-Vitamin (in 4 capsules)
7. Pro-Biotics (healthy gut, to counter recent antibiotics)
8. Apple Cider Vinegar w/Mother (many health benefits)
9. Occasional Enzymes (decreases with age)
10. Fiber Pills (just add a few here and there)
Occasionally, I'll do a cleanse of some kind.
Sorry this is an epic post but the debate's been raging a while and I had some catching up to do. I don't see any real argument here... H02 is right that much of the supplement industry success is vanity-based, not results-based but others are right in that we should still have free right to choose and learn for ourselves.
Happy Supplementing... | |
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HO2
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Joined: 10/11/2008
Msg: 64 | |
| Wild West of Supplements - who is monitoring Your Health ?
Posted: 9/3/2009 2:07:41 PM | Thanks for generating the feedback, much appreciated.
Busy lifestyles and hectic schedules make the convenience of many products seem extremely enticing.
Perhaps attempting to get necessary sleep, some fresh groceries, and a little meditative de-stress time
will allow people to benefit in body, mind and pocketbook .
Have a great holiday everyone ! | |
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