"A recent survey shows that 71% of Canadians regularly take vitamins and minerals, herbal products, homeopathic medicines and the like." - Health Canada Web site
Supplements, vitamins, and natural health products are a multi-billion-dollar industry. As consumers, we're often seduced by brand names, celebrity testimonials, slick advertising, and multi-level marketing pitches. We assume that the ingredients on the label are guaranteed to be safe and that the product will contain exactly what is stated on the label. This is not always the case.
Unbeknownst to the public, contamination is a concern with the manufacture of herbal and mineral supplements. Although the United States government created manufacturing standards, what they failed to do was state the methods or standards under which the ingredients were to be judged. For the consumer, this may mean substandard product that may contain a minimal amount of the original ingredients. In addition, the acceptable level of contamination is currently determined by the manufacturer.
Enter ConsumerLab.com, an online subscription service that advocates for the consumer via independent and rigorous evaluations of products that affect our health and nutrition. According to ConsumerLab.com, "people reaching for a natural remedy have a good chance of picking a product with no proven value or unsafe ingredients."
I had the opportunity to interview Ted Cooperman, M.D., the president of ConsumerLab.com. ConsumerLab.com is a privately held company that has no ownership or affiliation with companies that produce consumer products.
Sandra: Why was ConsumerLab.com started?
Dr. Cooperman: It was started in 1999 following scattered reports by some news organizations about problems with the quality of supplements. I founded the company to help the consumer identify high-quality health and nutrition supplements and asked Dr. William Obermeyer, who had been testing supplements at the FDA for nine years, to become our founding VP for Research.
Sandra: Are supplement regulations in the United States different from Canada's standards?
Dr. Cooperman: I am not an expert on Canadian regulations. I believe that Canada has a requirement that products or companies need to be registered, which is not the case in the U.S. However, having tested Canadian products as part of our reviews from time to time, I don't believe that the quality is necessarily higher in Canada than the U.S.
Sandra: Do you personally take any supplements?
Dr. Cooperman: I am in very good health. I exercise six days a week, sleep well, and eat a very well-balanced diet, including low-mercury fish frequently. The more that I have learned about nutrients, the better my diet has become, as it's generally better to get nutrients naturally if possible. Other than a couple of glasses a day of orange juice fortified with calcium and vitamins D, I rarely use supplements, nor am I on any medications. However, I do encourage my wife and children to take a multivitamin and eat calcium-fortified foods-those that have passed ConsumerLab.com testing. I see value in using supplements when used appropriately.
Sandra: In layman's terms, how does ConsumerLab.com determine the efficacy of a product?
Dr. Cooperman: We don't. We don't test for efficacy; that is what clinical trials are for. What we do is test supplements and nutritional products in the lab and compare these to the specifications for supplements that have been used in clinical trials to see if they match up. For example, ginkgo biloba should provide specific amounts of phytochemicals. Fish oils should provide certain amounts of omega-3 fatty acids. Probiotics should have certain minimum amounts of viable organisms, etc.
We also test products for contaminants, e.g., heavy metals and pesticides in herbs, heavy metals in mineral supplements, mercury and PCBs in fish oils, and specific degradation compounds in special supplements like creatine. Furthermore, all tablets and caplets are tested to be sure that they will break apart properly in a test that simulates the gut.
Sandra: What suggestions would you have for the public when it comes to selecting a supplement?
Dr. Cooperman: Know what you are looking for (dosage, standardized preparations that match clinical trial material), and be sure the label is clear as to what it provides. Be wary of "proprietary formulas" or "complexes" or "blends" that don't specify amounts of each ingredient. Try to purchase products that have been tested by us; check the ConsumerLab.com lists of Approved Products.
Sandra: In the public's mind, there can be a perception that the higher the price, the higher the product quality. Can you confirm or negate whether there is any truth to this?
Dr. Cooperman: That's not always true. Some companies that sell high volumes have the ability to sell high-quality supplements at a relatively low price. And we have certainly found some top-priced products that have failed our tests, often sold by small companies with slick advertising. For example, you can get a very decent multivitamin for as little as five cents a day, or you can spend well over a dollar a day and not get much more.
Sandra: Has there ever been a product that surprised you when it was tested?
Dr. Cooperman: Too many. We have tested many chondroitin products for osteoarthritis, for example, that contain little or no chondroitin; multivitamins contaminated with lead; kids' vitamins with amounts of vitamin A above the upper tolerable levels, i.e., potentially doing more harm than good; probiotics with few viable organisms; rancid fish oils, or lacking their claimed amounts of EPA and or DHA. You name it, we've seen it. We have tested over 2,000 products since we began in 1999, and approximately one-quarter have failed our tests.
Sandra: How does ConsumerLab.com choose which products they will be testing?
Dr. Cooperman: We try to always include popular brands and then rotate through some of the smaller brands. We also allow companies to voluntarily have products tested for certification, and we add those that pass to our reports (indicating that that is how they were chosen, of course). However, all products must be purchased by us as a consumer would. They cannot be sent to us. We are always open to suggestions of brands from our subscribers.
Sandra: What are your future plans for ConsumerLab.com?
Dr. Cooperman: We have reviews on our site for every popular category of supplement, and we continue to update these sixty major reports on an ongoing basis. Each year we add new categories that have become popular; we just added "resveratrol" supplements, for example, also referred to as "red wine" supplements. In addition, we recently tested our first generic drug; we found that it was not equivalent to the brand name drug. We undertook this as a result of mounting complaints being posted on the Web by people who had been switched to this generic. We are always looking for new health and nutrition products where a consumer desperately needs the results from an independent lab to really know what they are buying.
Sandra: Thank you.
Dr. Cooperman: And thank you, Sandra. |
