Topic - Dietary Supplement Dangers
U.S. Poison Control Centers get a call every twenty-four minutes regarding complications from dietary supplements. The rate of calls has increased fifty-percent over the past ten years. Most of the calls involved children younger than six who ate the supplements. About five percent of the time, there were serious medical complications. People wrongly think that dietary supplements are considered to be drugs, so they’re held to the same standards as medications. About fifty percent of the problems were caused by plant ingredients such as yohimbe, an aphrodisiac, which causes heart rhythm problems. People who experienced the most severe problems had used botanicals and energy products known as “cultural medicines”. Agencies are now calling for improved child packaging and parent education.
