Making virtually no money from this blog has its advantages, chief among them that I'm beholden to no one to say how wonderful or effective this or that product is, or, conversely, to hold my tongue when evidence pops up suggesting this or that product is useless.  It's all hard fact here, unless, of course, someone sends me a free t-shirt with minimal staining that's more or less my size, or a size I can give my wife or kids.  Then I'll say anything about anyone. 

There was a great sequence in Bigger, Stronger, Faster about how easy it is to create and market a dietary supplement:  the filmmaker has a professional photographer take "before" and "after" photos of him (both on the same day) for marketing purposes, he hires some day laborers to stuff some white filler powder into some capsules, tops them off with a microscopic quantity of some questionable but cool-sounding supplement, designs an eye-catching label, and voila--instant, completely legal, legitimate 'dietary supplement', as defined by the FDA.  Caveat Emptor. 

Yup, it's easy as pie to become a supplemental impresario, thank mostly to 1994 legislation which

allowed supplements—broadly defined as vitamins, minerals, herbs, amino acids and other products that don’t contain approved pharmaceutical drugs and don’t claim to treat diseases—to be sold with no proof of effectiveness or safety, and without approval from the FDA. That legislation, heavy with lobbyists’ fingerprints, razed virtually every barrier to entry into the marketplace.

You can read more about that legislation here.  The guidelines were called DSHEA, or the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA)--which is funny, because who, exactly, is getting 'educated' with these laws, except for consumers like you and me, who are getting an impromptu 'education' on the money-grubbing ways Snake-Oil Shysters?

And would that were all we were getting.  Back in May, Federal drug regulators warned consumers to

...stop using the popular Hydroxycut line of weight-loss products, citing reports of a death due to liver failure and other instances of serious health problems.  Hydroxycut is sold as pills, drinks and powders.  In all, the Food and Drug Administration said it had received 23 reports of significant adverse health effects in people who used Hydroxycut, including one person who required a liver transplant. Other complications included heart problems and a kind of muscle damage that could lead to kidney failure, the agency said.

So:  if you happen to be one of those people who like to snap up the latest supplement on the off-chance that it will be "The One" that will zap the fat off your midsection and blow your muscles up like balloons, just remember:  if it's a new supplement, you're officially a lab rat.  And things don't usually end well for lab rats.

Iovate Health Sciences, the company that put out Hydroxycut before the recall, issued a statement on its website that included the following:

...independent third-party experts from the leading independent scientific firm specializing in ingredient assessment, toxicology and product safety for the nutritional and pharmaceutical industry review the safety of Iovate’s ingredients and formulas before products are introduced in the marketplace. Only after this external review is completed does Iovate release a formula.

Broadly, they believe that the FDA has judged their product too harshly, but they're saying "okay, okay!  If you think our product is dangerous and all...". 

I've never been a huge supplement guy; I'm just too lazy and cheap by nature to get really into them.  Typically, I'll tell my clients to find themselves a good whey-casein blend protein powder, take their fish oil tablets and green tea, and maybe, if they're really, really into muscling up, grab some creatine.  Everything else is a waste of money, and, as we've seen, potentially a danger. 

It's possible that other supplements will be tried, proven, and finally creep their way into the mainstream so that even a slowpoke like me will come around to recommending them.  But for now--that's the whole menu.