Do you ever watch those comical pharmaceutical commercials where at the end the voice-over artist rattles off a long list of potential side effects and contraindications? “Taking ______ can cause acid reflux, anemia, certain types of cancer, diabetes, death, depression, dizziness, heart attacks, headaches, hearing problems, hot flashes, insomnia, itching, mood swings, nausea and vomiting, rash, sexual dysfunction, stroke, or visual disturbances. Talk to your doctor before taking ______.” This is the CYA or “cover your gluteus maximus” info. In many cases, these side effects are rare or do not exist, but the company has to mention them for legal reasons. People just tune this part out. I feel the same way about drug-supplement interactions. You should tune these out for three reasons.
1. Many conventional “experts” like to list anything bad that was ever reported with a supplement ingredient, even if it was in combination with other products, the result of contamination, or a one in a million occurrence from a case study. This is a ridiculous way to handle the situation and only leads to fear mongering or desensitization and a lack of supplement education.
2. We don’t even really know about 99.9 percent of the potential drug-supplement interactions. This is because companies are not required to test their specific supplement against other drugs, which is probably a good thing because many would go broke. Most clinical trials also don’t test these interactions either. Even when a company does report drug-supplement interactions, it’s probably inaccurate because the final product includes a whole list of other ingredients—its “unique blend.”
3. Science progresses so fast when it comes to drug and supplement research that interactions are a moving target. It can take a year for a study to get published, so by the time you read about it, it could be old news. In a perfect world, we’d see drug-supplement interactions updated weekly or monthly.
If you really want to know about drug-supplement interactions, you have to be willing to do your research (talk with a pharmacist or another health care professional or search online, such as at pubmed.gov) and accept some risk. It’s hard to keep up with the research on benefits, much less side effects and drug interactions, so the primary onus is on you, as it should be with prescription drugs as well.
The Supplement Handbook - Mark Moyad
