18 replies to this topic

[suspire]

I've been using various supplements for years, but I always get a bit nervous and twitchy about them. I always start the day with Milk Thistle, for instance, hoping it might offset any potential risks or issues. Still, I've felt that the use of supplements has more benefits than downsides. But articles like these give me pause and I am curious to hear what the community thinks: http://www.nytimes.c...etary-aids.html

[Hebbeh]

Yeah, I saw that. It doesn't say in what quantities he was dosing....or what else he may of been doing and not admitting too.....

[Gerrans]

It is worrying, isn't it? But there are some easy precautions to take. For example, I think it unwise to use extracts in high doses and probably best to swallow compounds in as close to their original form as possible--making them more like foods. For example, if we drink green tea as a beverage rather than take it as a concentrated extract, we move closer to the way it has been used traditionally.

It seems to me also that when you trace herbs back to their country of origin, they are often used in a relatively whole form, recognisably harvested from the plant. For example, Brazilians do not swallow muira puama in capsules--they take it in a drink, made from the fresh herb.

I also think it a mistake to assume a highly concentrated extract of the "active ingredients" might be the best way to take a herb. Not enough research has been done to justify most extraction criteria. Although the whole herb form might be less concentrated, it could contain many useful, synergistic ingredients omitted from the extract; and it might build its effect gently over several infused drinks, rather than hitting you in one wallop as you neck your daily hit. So, for example, I drink a nettle tea, featuring random bits of leaf and root, rather than gulp a concentrated root or leaf extract, because I imagine this was how nettle was taken through most of history.

My suggestion to anyone wanting to be on the safe side (probably the minority on this forum) would be to buy herbs in as close a form to the original plant as possible. And to buy a food rather than its extract (pomegranate rather than pomegranate extract). In the latter case, the extracts are less likely to be dangerous than just to be a waste of money.

Edited by Gerrans, 23 December 2013 - 06:36 PM.

[trance]

One of the problems with this article was that the author never identified what the actual product was. Most likely it was one of those brightly packaged energy concoctions sold at the cash-register of the local Quickie-Mart, next to the little cute containers of beer salt.

The story indicated the guy was overdosing on them, and green tea was probably the most common element on the package that anyone would recognize, so it gets reported by the author as a green tea supplement causing the problem. However, there is no identification of the product or other ingredients involved, which are most likely high-dose caffeine or other 'natural' unnatural precursors.

You really shouldn't be getting your weight loss protocol from the Quickie-Mart counter.

[Gerrans]

One of the problems with this article was that the author never identified what the actual product was. Most likely it was one of those brightly packaged energy concoctions sold at the cash-register of the local Quickie-Mart, next to the little cute containers of beer salt.

The story indicated the guy was overdosing on them, and green tea was probably the most common element on the package that anyone would recognize, so it gets reported by the author as a green tea supplement causing the problem. However, there is no identification of the product or other ingredients involved, which are most likely high-dose caffeine or other 'natural' unnatural precursors.

You really shouldn't be getting your weight loss protocol from the Quickie-Mart counter.

Your post reminded me of this:

Man died after eating Hero Instant Energy Mints, says coroner

http://www.bbc.co.uk...ingham-24492833

A man died from a caffeine overdose after eating too many high-energy mints, an inquest heard ... Mr Jackson, from Walsall Road, had a liver condition which was a contributory factor in his death. However, the cause of death was given as caffeine toxicity.

[hav]

Been trying to locate more specific info on exactly what green tea extract product is referred to in the NYT article but came up empty. Couldn't find any reference to this incident anywhere on the Internet except for apparent recent quotes of the NYT article. I have a deep suspicion that the NYT reporter did not actually verify exactly what was taken. I suspect it might have been one of this Texas company's weight loss products:

http://www.fda.gov/i...3/ucm371203.htm
http://www.huffingto..._n_4312138.html

... maybe taken before or in combination with a green tea extract.

Howard

Edited by hav, 23 December 2013 - 08:12 PM.

[joelcairo]

It probably has more to do with the dosage than the specific product. The article mentions using these supplements as "fat burners" and as bodybuilding aids, areas in which people are liable to think that more is always better.

Personally I take green tea extract every day and as of 2 weeks ago my liver function is quite normal. The overall amount of extract varies but it works out to about 500 mg of EGCG, so not a small amount.

[Ames]

What's curious is the run-up in the news, prior to the green tea extract story, about how "supplements", as a broad category, are useless. Imemdiately, this green tea extract story breaks that takes "supplements" from useless to dangerous. The mostly dormant conspiracy theorist in me wakes up a bit at such an obvious non-coincidence. This string of stories is a clear attempt at souring all molecules broadely referred to as "supplements" in the minds of the public.

Of course, the avergae 98 IQ citizen won't think to question the attempt at so broadely categorizing and condeming every OTC molecule on the market. "Supplements are useless and potentially harmful" will be enough to gain the trumped up support for whatever legislation they are assuredly planning on passing.

http://www.nytimes.c...ments.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.c...=me&ref=general

Edited by golgi1, 23 December 2013 - 10:46 PM.

[niner]

USA Today just had a front page story on "tainted supplements" and their criminal makers... It does seem like there's a rash of this stuff.

[Darryl]

We should stop calling green tea and other herbs "antioxidants", "hepatoprotective", etc, when their mechanism of action is as hormetins / eustressors. They're not doing any protecting, but the cellular stress responses (to guard against these xenobiotics) does.

Add a small-dose of EGCG to cancer cells in vitro, and induced endogenous stress responses subsequently protect the cells from toxins. Add a high dose, and the cells are killed by ROS generated through EGCG redox cycling, which overwhelms any endogenous stress responses. In each case, the pro-oxidative chemistry of EGCG is the same, but there's a limit to how much glutathione (etc) can be regenerated to protect against larger amounts of EGCG.

A simple change of language to hormetin or eustressor would highlight the non-linear dose response. More is not better.

[trance]

But news stations are now reporting that 3-4 glasses of beer a day boost your immune system ... alcohol self-administration modulates T cell proliferation.

http://atlanta.cbslo...-immune-system/



Digging deeper: it's a response from alcohol & MVA vaccines in rhesus monkeys: http://www.sciencedi...264410X13014734

[sthira]

I'm on CR, and fine drinking green tea as a beverage. However, I bought some Jarrow green tea extracts, 500mg dose once a day. A week later my blood pressure dropped very low, and I got light headed and even fainted on my kitchen floor. Scared the shit out of me.. N=1, of course, but the GTE made me pass out and fall literally on my head. I'm 100% sure it was the Jarrow GTEs. I quit taking that junk and the lightheadedness stopped.

[niner]

I'm on CR, and fine drinking green tea as a beverage.

Tea = Toxic might be a general trend: A worrying report. Tea from China looks particularly bad. Another interesting aspect of their findings is that "organic" tea is distinctly worse than "regular". The epidemiology on tea is pretty good, particularly green/white tea, so I'm not sure what to make of this, but it might be the case that the good epidemiology involves higher quality teas, or something. Do toxic metals make it into tea extracts? (I hope not, since I use them) It would depend on the extraction solvent and method, which is a question mark. I wonder if the better supplement vendors have analyzed their GTE for metals?

[joelcairo]

My main interest is cancer, and EGCG (or GTE) has probably replaced curcumin as my choice for the #1 dietary supplement any patient could take. It's quite astonishing -- if I went through all my notes I could probably list a dozen major oncogenic processes or signaling pathways that it inhibits. There are also some good clinical trials supporting its value, not just epidemiological evidence.

That's not the same as saying it would be good in high quantities for healthy individuals with normal risk factors. And of course contamination by heavy metals could be an issue, from some manufacturers or some sources, but I refuse to be fearmongered. When taken too far I believe this is a kind of nihilism, playing into the belief that nothing can be known and nothing can be done.

Edited by joelcairo, 25 December 2013 - 08:31 PM.

[Dorian Grey]

Anti-supplement propaganda has become all too common this year, and it looks like it will only get worse.

Don't know what this will lead to but I don't like the looks of it. Every month there's a new study out demonizing something... Lecithin/choline and carnitine cause heart disease, etc. These are always well rebutted (as Chris Masterjohn slayed the choline/carnitine myth), but this propaganda will forever be popping up in search results in those seeking information on them and scaring them off.

My girlfriend is a prime example... Whenever I talk to her about a supplement, the first thing she does is google the name of the supp with the word DANGERS. Then she gets all worried I'm poisoning myself with vitamin-E or something. Even when I show her the rebuttals, the seed has already been planted and she is now spooked about my entire modest little stack.

I'm a bit old to be getting paranoid, but it looks like someone or something is after our supps! Perhaps big pharma may either want control of the multi-billion supp industry, or perhaps simply kill it with legislation that is already been showing up on Capitol Hill (Dickie Durbin's not so private war on supps).

I hope the supplement industry will be more carefully policing their dosages to help slow the tsunami of disinformation about safety. Megadosing Madness will kill the entire industry if they aren't careful.

Edited by synesthesia, 26 December 2013 - 04:09 AM.

[Darryl]

It's not the toxic metals. In vivo, the beneficial polyphenols in green tea are pro-oxidant redox cyclers:

Galati, Giuseppe, et al. "Cellular and in vivo hepatotoxicity caused by green tea phenolic acids and catechins." Free Radical Biology and Medicine 40.4 (2006): 570-580.

The cytotoxicities of these major tea phenolics toward isolated rat hepatocytes have been ranked and the mechanisms of cytotoxicity evaluated. The order of cytotoxic effectiveness found was epigallocatechin-3-gallate > propyl gallate > epicatechin-3-gallate > gallic acid, epigallocatechin > epicatechin. Using gallic acid as a model tea phenolic and comparing it with the tea catechins and gallic acid-derivative food supplements, the major cytotoxic mechanism found with hepatocytes was mitochondrial membrane potential collapse and ROS formation. Epigallocatechin-3-gallate was also the most effective at collapsing the mitochondrial membrane potential and inducing ROS formation. Liver injury was also observed in vivo when these tea phenolics were administered ip to mice, as plasma alanine aminotransferase levels were significantly increased. In contrast, GSH conjugation, methylation, metabolism by NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase 1, and formation of an iron complex were important in detoxifying the gallic acid. In addition, for the first time, the GSH conjugates of gallic acid and epigallocatechin-3-gallate have been identified using mass spectrometry.

Small doses, good. Large doses, not so good.

Na, Hye-Kyung, and Young-Joon Surh. "Modulation of Nrf2-mediated antioxidant and detoxifying enzyme induction by the green tea polyphenol EGCG." Food and Chemical Toxicology 46.4 (2008): 1271-1278.
Mazzanti, Gabriela, et al. "Hepatotoxicity from green tea: a review of the literature and two unpublished cases." European journal of clinical pharmacology 65.4 (2009): 331-341.

Similar pluripotency against multiple oncogenic processes has been found with other extensively studied Nrf2 inducers like sulforaphane, curcumin, and CDDO-imidazole. EGCG doesn't seem particularly notable.

Wakabayashi, Nobunao, et al. "When Nrf2 talks, who's listening?."Antioxidants & redox signaling 13.11 (2010): 1649-1663.
Li, Wenge, et al. "Activation of Nrf2-antioxidant signaling attenuates NFκB-inflammatory response and elicits apoptosis." Biochemical pharmacology 76.11 (2008): 1485-1489.
Papp, Diána, et al. "The NRF2-related interactome and regulome contain multifunctional proteins and fine-tuned autoregulatory loops." FEBS letters586.13 (2012): 1795-1802.

The vast majority of naturally occuring Nrf2 inducers, like EGCG, have pro-oxidant activity, but there might be a better way, if one's planning chemoprevention with high dose supplements:

Martin-Cordero, Carmen, et al. "Pro-oxidant natural products as anticancer agents." Current Drug Targets 13.8 (2012): 1006-1028.
Satoh, Takumi, Scott R. McKercher, and Stuart A. Lipton. "Nrf2/ARE-mediated antioxidant actions of pro-electrophilic drugs." Free Radical Biology and Medicine 65 (2013):645-57

[Dorian Grey]

Bravo Darryl! You're quite skilled at this research stuff. Have you thought about getting a PhD? Or do you already have one!

[_alex_]

If people do their research it has been known for a long time that green tea is good in moderation but overdosing gives quite the opposite effect on the liver. Like EVERYTHING in life moderation is key. As soon as you start to tamper with extracts there will always be a risk of overdoses and contamination. The world is stupid, that is the sad truth and most are not smart enough to understand what is good for them or not. This is why these type of articles gets written.

Anybody can lose weight by adjusting their diet. People that say they can't and turn to artificial solutions are lazy and the same kind of people that would smoke cigarettes even though they know that it's bad for them. People don't think long term, they only care about instant gratification, hence extracts is the quick way.

Sticking to natural sources as much as possible and be responsible when picking out supplements is important, and don't overdo it. Research everything. Multivitamins are bad to since they are not only artificial but the amounts you can get of each vitamins is often way more then anyone could eat from natural sources in any given day. Humans did not evolve in nature to get these kinds of amounts on a daily basis. It is not so hard to figure all this out if people could just act responsible and think about what they put in their bodies.

Edited by _alex_, 26 December 2013 - 02:42 PM.

[osris]

Reports of liver damage due to green tea are exaggerated. See:

 

"There remain liver-related safety concerns, regarding potential hepatotoxicity in humans, induced by green tea intake, despite being supposedly beneficial. Although many randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of green tea extracts have been reported in the literature, the systematic reviews published to date were only based on subjective assessment of case reports. To more objectively examine the liver-related safety of green tea intake, we conducted a systematic review of published RCTs. A systematic literature search was conducted using three databases (PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials) in December 2013 to identify RCTs of green tea extracts. Data on liver-related adverse events, including laboratory test abnormalities, were abstracted from the identified articles. Methodological quality of RCTs was assessed. After excluding duplicates, 561 titles and abstracts and 119 full-text articles were screened, and finally 34 trials were identified. Of these, liver-related adverse events were reported in four trials; these adverse events involved seven subjects (eight events) in the green tea intervention group and one subject (one event) in the control group. The summary odds ratio, estimated using a meta-analysis method for spare event data, for intervention compared with placebo was 2.1 (95% confidence interval: 0.5–9.8). The few events reported in both groups were elevations of liver enzymes. Most were mild, and no serious liver-related adverse events were reported. Results of this review, although not conclusive, suggest that liver-related adverse events after intake of green tea extracts are expected to be rare."

 

https://pubmed.ncbi....h.gov/27188915/