Professors tell of New Zealand's wasted millions on diet supplements

By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter

People are wasting millions of dollars on dietary supplements, say two nutrition professors who want rules to control the health claims made for the products.

Their comments yesterday came as Australian regulators added another 421 products to the ever-growing list of Pan Pharmaceutical herbal remedies and medicines banned from sale, taking the total to more than 1500.

The Australian company's licence was suspended last week after it was found to have falsified tests on some products and failed to meet manufacturing standards.

In New Zealand, more than 700 products linked to Pan have been recalled.

Professor Jim Mann, of Otago University, said yesterday that while some supplements were important - iron for those who were deficient, vitamin B12 for vegetarians and folate for women who might become pregnant - others, like echinacea and vitamin E, were unproven.

Vitamin E was thought to reduce the risk of heart disease, but had not been convincingly shown to do so.

And of echinacea, a herbal extract touted as an immune system booster, he said: "Nobody knows. There's no proof one way or the other."

He did not oppose people taking mineral or vitamin supplements made by reliable companies if they felt they needed them, but he did not recommend doing so.

"There's probably billions of dollars being wasted worldwide on things that are doing no good."

New Zealanders spend about $145 million a year on nutritional supplements.

One study found more than 60 per cent of young adults had taken such supplements.

Professor John Birkbeck, of Massey University, said dietary supplements needed to be controlled to stop the many unsubstantiated claims being made for them.

Citing an advertisement for zinc supplements, he said that although there was evidence some people had a zinc deficiency, the ad extrapolated on this, suggesting that everyone feeling under the weather needed a zinc supplement.

"This problem with Pan is a heaven-sent opportunity for Governments, if they can get their acts together, to regulate these things the same as they do foods."

Nutritional Foods Association national president Bill Bracks said he accepted that many supplements were not proven in randomised, controlled trials, but this was not a reason to stop selling them.

This was because for the past 10 years there was no evidence of their causing deaths and only a minuscule proportion of people taking them had suffered adverse reactions - in contrast to pharmaceutical medicines.