LETTERS: GET INFORMED ABOUT SUPPLEMENTS

To the editor:

In her latest column, Judy Lueders, your "nutrition expert," warns of the dangers of dietary supplements, claiming that "they may actually damage your health rather than improve health." She also suggests educating yourself with information from reliable medical organizations and not using information from those who profit from the sale of supplements.

I took Lueders' advice and looked up information from organized medical establishments and found many articles contradicting her information. For example, the Journal of the American Medical Association (Feb. 4, 1998) recommends the use of folic acid and vitamin B6 in doses exceeding the recommended daily allowance to reduce a woman's risk of heart disease. According to the Aug. 11, 1997, JAMA, "40 percent of the U.S. population is taking supplements, and toxic reactions are rare." Similar articles were also found in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Few adverse reactions occur with the use of nutritional supplements. Reactions such as mild nausea or heart palpitations occur in a small number of cases and usually disappear when use of the supplement has been discontinued. In most of the reported adverse reactions, the recommended dose had been exceeded by as much as 10 times.

While it is important that we educate ourselves on the uses of nutritional supplements, it is equally important that we educate ourselves on possible side effects of prescription medications that are so freely prescribed. According to the American Medical Association, 100,000 deaths occur each year as a result of adverse drug reactions, yet prescribing these drugs is common practice. If this many reactions occurred from supplements, the Food and Drug Administration would have pulled them from the market a long time ago.

Lueders says that it is important to look at information from sources "other than someone that stands to profit from the sale of the product." What about information from sources who stand to gain from the FDA's control of the supplement market, namely the pharmaceutical industry.

It is estimated that nutritional supplements will be a $20 billion-a-year industry by 2000. The drug companies will not stand by and let someone else profit. Right now, under the pending Kennedy-Conrad tobacco legislation, dietary supplements could fall into the same classification as tobacco and be greatly restricted, if not pulled, from the market. It is important that we not lose our freedom to take dietary supplements as we please. Write to our elected officials and let them know we would like the wording of this bill changed.

Lueders recommends that we educate ourselves before taking a nutritional supplement. I suggest that she, as well as many local health professionals, educate themselves before condemning the use of nutritional supplements.

BECKY FARRIS

Cape Girardeau