It’s no surprise that in this confusing environment, with millions of patients desperate for help, some companies have taken advantage of how loosely dietary supplement claims are regulated to sell unproven long COVID treatments.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest applauds the California state legislature for passing AB-1341, a bill that would ban the sale of over-the-counter diet pills and weight-loss supplements to minors in California.
Magnum XXL 9800, Jaguar Power, Kangaroo Intense Alpha 3000. Those are just a few of the tainted dietary supplements that, until recently, were sold on walmart.com and other websites.
Among other reforms, Senator Murray's bill requires companies to publicly list their supplements in an FDA database for the first time, improves oversight of high-risk supplements, and expressly prohibits products fraudulently marketed as dietary supplements.
“Heart health.” “Improves memory.” “Supports immunity.” Those and similar claims rule the supplement aisle. But few are based on double-blind, randomized controlled trials, the crème de la crème of research. Here’s a handful of findings from some of the latest randomized trials.
“In short-term clinical trials looking at changes in blood pressure and blood vessel dilation, cocoa flavanols looked promising, and reductions in cholesterol and inflammatory markers were also seen in some trials,” says JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
The COSMOS-Mind trial was funded by the National Institute on Aging to see if cocoa flavanols or multivitamins could help people stay mentally sharp as they age.
