A dietary supplement is a product intended for ingestion that contains a "dietary ingredient" intended to add further nutritional value to (supplement) the diet. A "dietary ingredient" may be one, or any combination, of the following substances:
- a vitamin
- a mineral
- an herb or other botanical
- an amino acid
- a dietary substance for use by people to supplement the diet by increasing the total dietary intake
- a concentrate, metabolite, constituent, or extract
Dietary supplements may be found in many forms such as tablets, capsules, softgels, gelcaps, liquids, or powders. Some dietary supplements can help ensure that you get an adequate dietary intake of essential nutrients; others may help you reduce your risk of disease.
Source: http://www.fda.gov/
What you need to know first about dietary supplements?
Dietary supplements include things like vitamins, minerals, herbs, or products made from plants. They can also be made from animal parts, algae, seafood, yeasts, fungus, and many other food substances or extracts. They include powdered amino acids, enzymes, energy bars, and liquid food supplements.
Some dietary supplements are formulated under careful conditions in clean, controlled laboratories and labeled accurately. Others are made less carefully, and have been found to contain none of the substances listed on their labels. And some supplements contain other substances that are not listed on their labels – fillers, different herbs, or actual drugs that are known to be able to cause harm.
If you are thinking about using dietary supplements as part of your cancer treatment, you’ll want to know more before you decide what to do. The information here will help you learn more about dietary supplements so you can make a more informed decision about using them safely.
Source: http://www.cancer.org/
Dietary supplements are considered safe until proven unsafe!
In 1994, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) defined dietary supplements as a category of food, which put them under different regulations than drugs. They are considered safe until proven otherwise. The DSHEA says that dietary supplements cannot contain anything that may have “a significant or unreasonable risk of illness or injury” when the supplement is used as directed on the label, or with normal use if there are no directions on the label.
A dietary supplement is considered “new” if it contains an ingredient not recognized as a food substance, unless it was sold as a supplement before October 1994. If it is new, the manufacturer must provide the FDA with reasonable evidence that the new ingredient is safe before the supplement is marketed to the public.
But manufacturers are not required to test new ingredients or supplements in clinical trials, which would help find risks and potential interactions with drugs or other substances. The DSHEA gives the FDA permission to stop a company from making a dietary supplement, but only when the FDA proves that the product poses a significant risk to the health of Americans. This means they are found unsafe only after they cause harm. This is the reverse of the way prescription and non-prescription drugs are handled.
Dietary supplements are usually self-prescribed, so there’s no controlled system for reporting bad reactions and side effects. Doctors and patients can report problems, but are not required to do so. If a supplement has unknown side effects or interactions with other drugs, foods, or supplements, they are not likely to be discovered as quickly as those of new drugs on the market.
Source: http://www.cancer.org/
Risks and side effects of dietary supplements
Like drugs, dietary supplements have risks and side effects. But sellers aren’t required to do research studies in people to prove that a dietary supplement is safe. And unlike drugs, dietary supplements are mostly self-prescribed with no input from informed medical sources like doctors, nurses, or pharmacists.
There’s a lot of wrong information out there. Even for those who are usually well informed, it can be hard to find reliable information about the safe use and potential risks of dietary supplements.
As part of its function to monitor supplement safety, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tracks reports of illness, injury, or reactions from supplements. And supplement makers are required to report serious harmful effects to the FDA. Early numbers are reported on the FDA website. Recent FDA information shows that the number of reports has continued to climb each calendar year:
2010: 1,009 reports of dietary supplement adverse events
2011: 2,047 reports of dietary supplement adverse events
2012: 2,844 reports of dietary supplement adverse events
Exposures to supplements (such as vitamins, herbs, protein powders, and botanicals) accounted for more than 35,000 calls to US poison control centers in 2011. Of these calls, more than 4,000 people were reportedly treated in health care facilities. More than 800 cases were described as having moderate to severe outcomes, with 4 deaths reported to poison control centers.
Most people who suffer unexpected side effects, illnesses, or drug interactions from dietary supplements don’t call a poison control center or the supplement manufacturer. This means that the numbers we have are likely very low estimates of actual events.
Used properly, certain dietary supplements may help reduce the risk of some diseases, reduce discomfort caused by certain drugs or conditions, or simply make you feel better (improve your quality of life). And most people can use dietary supplements safely within certain dosage guidelines. But taking dietary supplements can be risky, especially for people who are getting cancer treatment.
Special problems for people getting cancer treatment
There are several ways that supplements can cause problems for people during cancer treatment. For example, some dietary supplements can cause skin sensitivity and severe reactions when taken during radiation treatment. People who are getting radiation treatments should talk to their doctors before taking any supplement.
People getting chemotherapy may be at higher risk for drug interactions if they take dietary supplements. There is also concern that antioxidants might interfere with cancer cell-killing treatments. Cancer experts often recommend that patients avoid dietary supplements altogether until their cancer treatment is over. But if you decide to take supplements anyway, be sure to let your doctor know exactly what you are taking.
Source: http://www.cancer.org/
Here's a short clip by Dr. John McDougall explaining <Vitamin Supplements>
To read more about Dr. John Mc Dougall, read here:
https://www.drmcdougall.com/about/dr-john-mcdougall/
Here are 3 online articles about supplements, please click the link provided to read more:
Here are some images taken from the book <Enjoying Health & Longevity With Nutritional Immunology> by Dr Jau-Fei Chen.
If dietary supplements are able to help to cure diseases, why till today, mortality rate still climbing high?
It was 20 years ago since the law was announced that all dietary supplements' ingredients must reviewed by FDA (Foods and Drugs Administration for their safety before they are marketed. However, human still suffer from various types of chronic diseases till today, are the advanced medical technology that we human possessed today, still unable to ourselves from such diseases?
Take a look at these numbers, taken from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (link located at bottom of the picture).
Why are there such huge numbers of death caused by Heart disease? Cancer, a disease which abnormal cells divide without control and are able to invade other tissues, ranked number 2 of death caused in US for year 2014 alone! It is very clear that something has gone wrong or misconception about the diet that we practised everyday. I believed that everybody has this experience, where we visit clinic or hospital when we fell sick, doctor will issued us medications such as pills and pain killers, and antibiotic. Are these pills really helped to cure our illness? Do you know that such medication will caused harm to our body rather than helping to free ourselves from falling sick?
Panadol (aceraminophen), belongs to a group of medicines called analgesics (pain relievers) and antipyretics (fever reducers). It works quickly to relieve pain caused by conditions such as headache and osteoarthritis, and to reduce fever caused by infection. It is used by itself as well as in combination medication products for cough, cold and pain relief. (Details link here: http://chealth.canoe.com/drug/getdrug/Panadol) It is very sure that Panadol is not the medicine to cure our fever, or cough, or flu, but to slows down or more precisely, suppresses our pain caused by these illnesses.
So, what is the thing that really cures us from illness? The answer is our immune system! Our immune cells, which located at various parts in our body, protecting ourselves from bacteria and viruses 24/7! (To read more about our immune system, please click here: Our Immune System ) It is very important to nourish our immune cells with proper nutrients so that our immune system works perfectly all the time. (To read more about what are the 3 nutrients to boost our immune system, click here: What is Nutritional Immunology)
