If folks in the United States don’t have enough to worry about already, a new study is claiming that a litany of herbal products may contain ingredients human beings should not be ingesting.
As previously relayed by The Dallas Express, other consumer products that have made headlines in recent months for the contaminants they may contain include lead-tainted tampons and seafood containing fiberglass.
Isn’t it just grand that in the year 2024, you still have to play detective every time you order crab or need a hygiene product? Because, apparently, it’s too much to ask for products that don’t come with a side of toxic chemicals or mystery contaminants.
Here’s some of what Newsweek reported on the recent study concerning herbal products:
Millions of Americans might be regularly taking herbal remedies containing harmful ingredients, new research has found.
At least 15.6 million U.S. adults may have consumed one herbal product with the potential to damage their liver within the last 30 days, according to a new paper in the journal JAMA Network Open.
Of these products, 4.7 percent of people surveyed reported having consumed unregulated turmeric, green tea, ashwagandha, Garcinia cambogia, red yeast rice, or black cohosh products, which may have “hepatotoxic effects” on the body.
“We estimated that at least 15.6 million US adults used at least 1 of 6 potentially hepatotoxic botanical products within the past 30 days, which was similar to estimated number of US adults prescribed an NSAID or simvastatin,” the researchers wrote in the paper.
“Given a lack of regulatory oversight on the manufacturing and testing of botanical products, clinicians should be aware of possible adverse events from consumption of these largely unregulated products,” they said.