Herbal Hysteria!
Oh boy…so my husband sent me an article that caught his eye regarding supplements and the potential for liver damage. I have him on several different supplements, and after reading the article he asked if I was secretly trying to kill him!
If you would like to review the article, you can read it here, but I am going to break it down for you and make it a little less sensational than the headline.
https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/a61973555/supplements-liver-damage/
First of all, I have beef with the headline which leads you to believe you could be at risk. If you read the article, most of it doesn’t support the fear-based clickbait headline. The headline reads, “Millions of Americans Could Be Taking These Herbal Supplements Linked to Liver Damage.” Well, that sounds scary, tell me more.
It goes on to say that data shows an increase in liver damage from botanicals (but no specifics about which botanicals) from 5% to 20% from 2005 to 2014. Cool, but it’s 2024 so some updated data is important. It admits that the supplement industry is not well regulated and what it says on the label may not be exactly what is in the product. I do agree with this critique but please realize it does not mean that all supplements are full of fillers or other products in addition to what it says on the bottle.
The article then goes on to say, “The results were statistically significant.” However, it’s important to point out that the study did not find that the supplements caused liver damage; rather, it discovered that about five percent of participants took supplements that could lead to harm. The six supplements that were studied had been linked to liver damage in previous research.
Hmm, that’s confusing! Statistical significance is important because it means the results were due to the variable being studied and not some other cause. It goes on to say that the botanicals listed were not the direct cause of liver damage, but that the people in the study were taking at least one of them and past research has shown liver damage. That leaves me with a lot of questions, but the main one is, what is the point of this article?
I am not actually sure. I would say this: news articles tend to want us to be scared. Fear grabs our attention and makes us click the link. Operating out of fear is not the same as operating out of facts. The takeaways for me are these:
1. We should be cautious about supplements because although they are “natural” that does not mean they cannot cause harm.
2. We should be choosy about brands. Since the industry is not well regulated there are a lot of “adulteration” or poor-quality products on the market. Some companies prioritize quality and take extra steps to ensure the products they provide have in them what they say are in them, so be careful not to, “throw the baby out with the bath water” as they say.
3. They did not mention dosing or baseline health status in this article and that absolutely matters. Like anything we ingest from food to alcohol to medicine, too much can be dangerous and not enough may not help.
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