FDA warns of dangerous dietary supplements

The Food and Drug Administration has received dozens of reports about harmful side effects - including stroke and death - linked to two dietary supplements currently on the market, Reumofan Plus and Reumofan Plus Premium.

The agency has issued a safety alert to warn consumers about the dangers of the supplements. They are both marketed as natural dietary supplements but the FDA claims they have potentially dangerous active ingredients that aren't listed on their labels. The supplements are used to treat arthritis, osteoporosis, muscle pain, bone cancer and a host of other ailments.

They are manufactured in Mexico by Riger Naturals, but sold in the United States in some stores, Internet sites and flea markets. Most are labeled in Spanish but there could be versions with English labels.

The FDA is working closely with the Mexican government and says the Mexican Ministry of Health issued a health warning to the public and ordered Riger Naturals to recall the products.

The FDA issued its first initial warning to consumers about Reumofan Plus based on preliminary laboratory tests. But after receiving increased reports of health problems, confirming drug ingredients and finding similar ingredients in Reumofan Plus Premium, officials decided to issue a second warning.

"Consumers taking these products are urged to immediately consult with their doctor to safely discontinue use of the product," said FDA spokeswoman Sarah Clark-Lynn. "The hidden drug ingredients in Reumofan Plus and Reumofan Plus Premium can lead to serious, even life-threatening health consequences. The longer the product is taken, the higher the risk of these serious health consequences."

The FDA says its lab analysis found prescription drug ingredients including dexamethasone, diclofenac sodium and methocarbamol in the supplements.

Dexamethasone is a corticosteroid used to treat inflammation. It can cause high blood sugar, injury to bone and muscle and psychiatric problems. Taking high doses of the drug or stopping it suddenly can cause low blood pressure and low blood sugar, fever, dizziness, nausea and fatigue.

"Abrupt discontinuation of corticosteroids may cause serious withdrawal syndrome and life-threatening adrenal suppression," Clark-Lynn said. "These risks depend upon a number of variables that need to be assessed by a health care professional, and medical intervention may be necessary. Only a licensed health care professional can evaluate patients for the risk, or confirm the existence, of adrenal suppression."

Diclofenac sodium is an NSAID - a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug. Taken improperly, it can increase the risk of gastrointestinal (GI) problems including ulcers, bleeding, fatal rupture of the stomach and intestines and cardiovascular events like heart attack and stroke.

Methocarbamol is a muscle relaxer that can cause sleepiness and dizziness and affect a person's ability to drive a car or operate machinery. Equally concerning, the FDA says, is the fact that these ingredients could interact with other medications and cause serious health problems.

The FDA is asking doctors and consumers to report any side effects related to the two supplements to the FDA's MedWatch Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program.

Eating Healthy - Eating Cheap!

Yesterday I had a conversation with a young co-worker who was sharing insight on how he can't make his money last.

Hmmm .  .  . I think we've all be down that road!

It’s hard to argue with a $1 double cheeseburger. Perhaps that’s why so many believe that eating healthy is expensive.

The myth has become so pervasive that everyone from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to health care providers is attempting to dispel it. Now the Environmental Working Group is joining in.

The EWG has combined forces with anti-hunger group Share Our Strength to create a healthy shopping guide for low-income households: “Good Food on a Tight Budget.”

The guide contains lists of “best buys” – those that pack the most nutrition for the lowest cost – in each food group, cooking/shopping tips, recipes, a meal planner and a price tracker.

Best buys include bananas, watermelons, broccoli, raisins, romaine lettuce, barley, tuna, lentils/beans, eggs, turkey and cottage cheese.

Price was the primary concern for the group’s choices, EWG nutritionist and lead author Dawn Undurraga said. Experts then screened out foods that contain a lot of chemicals, like pesticides, or whose production creates greenhouse gases.

Your food choice is one of the most powerful choices that you make everyday that affects your environment.

Some of the guide’s top tips include buying grains in bulk, cooking dried beans to save money, mixing your own cooking sprays and substituting yogurt for cream in recipes.

Healthy food is affordable, but it’s definitely a different style of eating.  Still, I would rather eat healthy and right and protect my body!

Can nasal spray help prevent military suicides?

Could the solution to increasing suicide and depression rates among members of the U.S. military lie in a nasal spray? The Army hopes so.

In the midst of a crisis that saw its highest rate of suicide in July, the Army has greenlighted a grant for Dr. Michael Kubek, an Indiana University of Medicine professor, to dig deeper into whether a nasal spray could be a safe and effective way to administer a specific antidepressive neurochemical to the brain and help calm suicidal thoughts.

Kubek helped discover thyrotropin-releasing hormone, or TRH, which is known to have antisuicidal and antidepression effects. The problem is that the naturally occurring chemical cannot easily cross the “blood-brain barrier.” The barrier is meant to protect the nervous system by keeping out any substances in the blood that could injure the brain, including hormones and neurotransmitters. But it also makes it extremely difficult to get TRH to the brain, rendering normal methods of delivering the chemical, through pills or injection, largely unhelpful.

The military is hoping Kubek, an associate professor of anatomy and cell biology and of neurobiology, can use a three-year grant to work with other researchers to use a nasal spray to get TRH safely into the brain and calm soldiers' thoughts.

Kubek's research was spotted by Navy physician Capt. Neal Naito several years ago, according to a news release from Indiana University. Naito, who had been the director of public health for the Navy but is now retired, reached out to Kubek to see whether his research might be applied to active military members and veterans.

The Army reported 242 suicides in 2009, 305 in 2010 and 283 in 2011.

“These deaths are troubling and tragic,” Kubek said in a statement. “Today’s commonly used anti-depressants can take weeks to have an effect and carry a black box warning label for suicidal ideation in young adults. That is why we hope to develop a quick-acting, easy-to-use, non-invasive system that delivers a compound that’s been shown to reduce suicidal thoughts.”

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told a congressional committee last month that the U.S. military was facing an "epidemic" of suicides and was in need of improvements in mental health services for active-duty and returning troops.

The military spends about $2 billion a year on mental health for its members. But many who study and report on military suicides say the stigma attached to depression as well as the red tape involved in implementing a program make it difficult to attack the problem in the aggressive way that is needed.

Time magazine Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Mark Thompson says a former high-ranking Army officer told him, “there are promising techniques that the military could deploy against suicide, but they involve an initial two-hour screening, a sit-down, a one-on-one with a psychiatrist that this nation is just not willing to pay for.”

Kubek's techniques could be promising. It will take a few years to know, but it's research the Army knows is important.

"Suicide is the toughest enemy I have faced in my 37 years in the Army. And it's an enemy that's killing not just Soldiers, but tens of thousands of Americans every year," Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, vice chief of staff of the Army, said in a written statement after the July release of suicide statistics.
 "That said, I do believe suicide is preventable. To combat it effectively will require sophisticated solutions aimed at helping individuals to build resiliency and strengthen their life coping skills."

Kubek will work with pharmacology professor Abraham Domb from Hebrew University in Jerusalem to figure out how to deliver the drug effectively. That process, according to Indiana University’s School of Medicine, should take about a year. Kubek would then work with researchers at Purdue University on clinical trials in the second and third years of the grant.