The Truth Behind Your Supplements

Last week, the New York State Attorney General's office unveiled what could potentially amount to fraud in the dietary supplement industry. The office targeted four major retailers of supplements, Target, GNC, Walgreens, and Walmart, and accused them of selling bogus supplements. The office backed their claim that the retailers were selling supplements that contained very little, or none at all, of the advertised ingredients and demanded that the supplements be removed from their shelves as they could potentially cause harm. This revelation, if true, is a real blow to the supplement industry but more so to consumers who have had their faith in the benefit and safety of the supplements they take shaken. However, I recommend that you don't throw out all of your supplements just yet. It has surfaced that the claims made by the attorney general's office relied upon DNA testing as the primary means for identifying the ingredients contained in the supplements tested. This matters, because while DNA analysis is appropriate in certain applications, this methodology has not been validated for identifying botanical materials in herbal extracts. Here is the issue with DNA testing of botanical/herbal ingredients in a nutshell: Most botanicals/herbals are concentrated extracts and depending on how they are extracted, there may be no DNA present. The best approach is to take each ingredient and evaluate the best test method based on its concentration or extraction method and work wit...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news