What's in YOUR Supplement?

In a textbook example of why you need to pay attention to where you get your supplements, who makes them and how, health guru Gary Null has filed a lawsuit claiming that he nearly died from taking his own product. Who, you may well ask, is Gary suing? It turns out that, as is the case with the vast majority of nutritional supplements, Gary Null's Ultimate Power Meal is manufactured not by his own company but by a third party (in this case Triarco Industries). According to Null's suit, Triarco put 1,000 times the intended dose of Vitamin D in his product, which he then simply re-branded and sold - apparently without bothering to check what he'd bought. Along with half a dozen health-conscious customers, Null reported experiencing "severe kidney damage" and "excruciating fatigue along with bodily pain" as well as bleeding "within his feet".

While the irony of nearly dying from taking your own nutritional supplement product is palpable, the real surprise is that things like this do not happen more often. There are no FDA requirements that supplement products be tested for safety or efficacy on an ongoing basis, and it is an open secret in the industry that the contents of any given container may vary widely from what is indicated on the labeling.

So what is really in your supplements? Do you really know what you are taking? How sure are you that the bottle you buy this month contains either what the label says it does or what last month's bottle did? Maybe its time you found out.

As a contrasting example, Reliv International - for whom I am an independent distributor - owns its own manufacturing plant where it produces all of its own products; requires its vendors to provide independent, third party certification of the quality and purity of all ingredients that they supply; and subjects its own formulated products to a different third party analysis before shipment. Their facility has been praised by the FDA a a "model" manufacturing operation and they have earned pharmaceutical grade manufacturing certification in several countries where this is required for nutritional supplements. Is all this more costly than buying the cheapest products you can find and slapping your label on them? Yes. Is it worth it? I imagine Gary Null now thinks so.

FDA Approves Crestor for People with No Cholesterol Problems

On March 30th, the New York Times reported that the FDA had approved new criteria suggesting that an estimated 6.5 million Americans who have no cholesterol problems and no sign of heart problems be considered candidates for long-term use of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs. Specifically, the nation's drug watchdog agency approved the new criteria for Crestor, which is made by AstraZeneca and is the nation’s second best-selling statin. The company is already preparing its marketing campaign. (“Feeling healthy? Don’t Be Too Sure . ..)

While statin drugs have been undeniably successful in lowering cholesterol, they come with numerous and serious side effects. Among the possible side effects acknowledged by AstraZenica are headache, muscle pain (myalgia), abdominal pain, weakness and nausea. Other side effects known to be associated with the drug include increased risk of type 2 diabetes, liver enzyme abnormalities, memory loss, rhabdomyolysis (the breakdown of muscle fiber) and kidney failure. Here is a good summary of the side effects of statin class drugs.

You would think that recommending the drug to millions of people with none of the symptoms it is intended to treat would at least result in significant health benefits in exchange for assuming these additional risks. But the single study leading to the expanded approval produced only a 0.2% improvement vs the control group. That is, 2 people out of 1,000 did better than those taking sugar pills. In the case of this seeming healthy group of patients, “Ultimately, the benefit is statistically significant but not clinically significant," says Dr. Steven W. Seiden, a cardiologist in Rockville Centre, N.Y. “The benefit is vanishingly small,” Seiden added. “It just turns a lot of healthy people into patients and commits them to a lifetime of medication."

A lifetime of very expensive medication. “Crestor, which had sales of $4.5 billion last year, will not be subject to generic competition until 2016 — and so (AstraZenica) has more years to benefit from expanded use of the product at name-brand prices,” observed NYTimes reporter Duff Wilson, the Times article's author. “The drug, taken as a daily pill, sells for at least $3.50 a day, compared with only pennies a day for some generic statins." You can do the math. Pharmaceutical companies are on record that they want to have half the population of the USA on statin drugs (Lipitor, Crestor, Zocor, etc).

Given their serious potential side effects, given that there is no definitive proof that the drugs actually reduce the risk of heart attack (that they lower cholesterol levels is proven) and given that numerous alternatives for reducing cholesterol exist, many medical experts question whether this loosening of the regulatory guidelines is a healthy move. You should too.

MLM as Retirement Planning

Early last month, NPR ran a series exploring the impact of the stock market crash and subsequent recession on Americans' retirement plans and resources. The need to rebuild retirement nest-eggs that have fallen 40% or more in value was understandably daunting. "It was really frustrating and (my husband and I) discussed, well should we stop investing and invest all the money in a vacation home," said Victoria Banales, an educator from Idaho. "I distrust (the market), but on the other hand I also keep investing, hoping somehow we'll find some kind of combination that will still help us save for retirement."

That seemed to be the general sentiment. I don't trust it, I don't understand it, I don't like it. But I keep putting money into it because, well, because I don't know what else to do.

So here is an idea that may seem a little out of the box but, upon closer examination, makes a good deal of sense (at least to me). Find yourself a good direct selling/multi-level marketing company (I've talked about what took look for and what to avoid in an MLM company before), one with products you like, want to use and do believe in. Become a distributor at the highest profit level that you can comfortably afford. Start to consistently devote time to it, every week. This doesn't have to (and should not) take over your life. It doesn't have to seriously cut into your family time or interfere with your career. The key here is consistency. Doing something every day, every week, even for just a couple of hours. Obviously if you devote more time you should achieve success faster, but the important element here is to be consistent.

If you have chosen well and work consistently, you will begin to generate residual income. A couple of hundred extra dollars a month could well make the difference between being able to retire and having to keep working. A few thousand dollars a month could lift your retirement lifestyle to a whole new level. You can stop working this business whenever your income reaches a level with which you are satisfied, and continue to receive that income for many years after, perhaps even for the rest of your life (and, in some cases, your children's lives). And, of course, you don't ever have to stop working at it a few hours a week unless you really want to. No booms and crashes to fret about, no worries about "running out", no concerns over changing government rules or company accounting "adjustments".

Now make no mistake, this is no "get rich quick" scheme. Like anything else worthwhile it takes effort and it takes time. But what else are you doing right now that will continue to pay you a few hundred or a few thousand (or even much more) dollars every month for the rest of your life? So there, Victoria, is something else you could do. Maybe its not right for you, but you owe it to yourself to evaluate and consider it.

Table Salt Costing Americans $8 Billion per Gram?

A study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine estimates that if Americans would reduce their consumption of table salt by only 1/2 a teaspoon daily (3 grams), overall US spending on healthcare could be reduced by as much as $24 billion annually. And cutting only 1 gram per day would be far more cost effective in reducing blood pressure among hypertensive individuals than common prescription medications. Aside from the cost of treatment of chronic conditions directly related to the excessive consumption of salt, this tiny reduction (3 grams per day) would reduce annual new cases of coronary heart disease, stroke and heart attack by half. Just to put this in perspective, that would be some 146,000 fewer new cases per year.

My first reaction to this was along the lines of "Why then should people who responsibly monitor their diets be forced to fund the "right" of those who do not to treatment for their self-inflicted illnesses?" As is often the case with my first reactions, while it contains a grain of truth there is much more to the story.

According to the NEJ article, 75% - 80% of the salt we consume is "hidden" in the processed foods we eat. There are no requirements that restaurants disclose the salt content in, or added to, the foods they serve. According to one Center for Science in the Public Interest study, some single fast food meals contain as much as four times the total recommended daily salt intake.

Nutritional labeling requirements in the USA are a sick (literally) joke. They are still based on the 65 year old minimum daily requirement standard, and are written in such a way that one cannot help but wonder if they are deliberately intended to confuse rather than inform. (Why would a can of chili provide labeling based on servings and then put 2 1/2 servings in the can? Can most people do that math in their heads?) Perhaps its time we took a real interest in being provided with the basic information we need to make good nutritional choices for ourselves, instead of relying on the government and the food industry to keep us informed? Seriously this is a disgrace.

Addicted to Eating?

As the obesity rate among Americans climbs past 1-in-3 (with over 2-in-3 of us classified as overweight) several initiatives are exploring the nature of our relationship with food..... physically, emotionally and socially. In one study done on rats and published in the research journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at Scripps Research Institute in Florida concluded that eating a lot of junk food makes you want to eat more junk food. "The animals completely lost control over their eating behavior, the primary hallmark of addiction," said neuroscientist Paul Kenny in a statement describing the work.

Former FDA Commissioner David Kessler, in his 2009 book The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, says that food is excessively activating the brains of millions of Americans to get them to come back to eat more. He especially blames fat, sugar and salt, combined with effective marketing campaigns, super-sizing of portions and relaxed social mores related to how and where we consume food.

With 3 in 4 Americans scheduled to die of heart disease, cancer or stroke, and with rates of Type II Diabetes soaring (it is now being commonly diagnosed in children as young as 10 years old), maybe it is time to take a hard look at the dietary and lifestyle choices that are largely responsible for our "healthcare crisis". Possibly the most effective way to reduce America's unsustainable heathcare costs would be in invest in helping people to recognize, treat and recover from our addiction to foods that are killing us.