For those of you who have been reading my blog for some time, you'll know that I have reported that the quality of herbs and supplements purchased from health food stores, pharmacies and mail order companies is abysmal. Now, the Attorney General from New York officially agrees with my position, at least in this instance.
Yesterday, he announced that he would be ordering all echinacea and other herbs sold by the above-mentioned stores to be taken off the shelves and no longer allowed to be sold in NY. His investigating offices found all of the brands that were sold to either not contain any echinacea or to have so many fillers as to contain only minute amounts of the herb.
This and other herbs may be sold without any federal quality controls and that is a major reason that herbs can either be void of any health benefits or may cause adverse reactions due to unknown additives and fillers.
MediHerb and Standard Process undergo rigorous federal quality controls to ensure that they contain the herbs and vitamins that they claim to contain. Also, MediHerb is a company that grows its own medicinal herbs. Take echinacea, for example. It's the alkylamide in the echinacea which gives it its medicinal quality. The following is the result of an echinacea product comparison between MediHerb and other companies that sell the herb:
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MediHerb: contains 6.86 mg of alkylamide per capsule. Vital Nutrients: 0.44 alkylamide per cap ( need an equivalent of 16 to equal MediHerb). Nature's Way: 0.26 mg/cap, need 27 capsules. Douglas Labs: 0.21 mg/cap, need 33 capsules. Natural Factors: 0.10mg/cap, need 69 capsules. Ecological Formulas (this company handles Innate and Gaia echinacea): 0.05 mg/cap, you'd need to take a whopping 137 capsules to equal the alkylamides in ONE capsule of the Echinacea Premium from MediHerb!
Many of our patients have told us that MediHerb herbs are expensive. After showing them the comparison and after they actually take the herbs, they understand why. You won't find most of this company's products on the internet because they only sell to doctors...not even to health food stores. People need to reconsider their self-prescribing habits and their purchasing habits...unregulated herbs can be ineffective, at best, and dangerous, at worst.
Herbal remedies are a $60 billion business/ year in this country. Most of those dollars are going to waste. I encourage you all to "consider the source," when purchasing herbs or supplements.
www.fixdhealthcare.com
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