20/20: Warnings About Herbal Supplements

Dec. 15 -- As Americans seek ways to stay healthy, more and more are downing herbal supplements, vitamins and minerals in record numbers. About half of us take them, spending about $15 billion a year on them — twice what we spent just five years ago.

Nutritional supplements, in particular, have crossed over from the shelves at the health food stores into supermarkets, drugstores, and discount stores. Even entire chains, like GNC and Vitamin Shoppe, are built around them.

But as 20/20’s Arnold Diaz reports, some believe the herbal explosion is a double-edged sword. While on one side, many of the products are effective and can improve a person’s life, new laboratory tests obtained by 20/20 reveal that some products may have much less of the key ingredients than they list on the label. And as manufacturers rush into lucrative new markets, critics argue there are not enough safety nets.

If you pick up a bottle of prescription or over-the-counter medication, you can be pretty sure it’s been through lots of testing and government scrutiny before it gets in your hands. But with nutritional supplements, there are no guarantees. That’s because herbals, vitamins and minerals are regulated like food and their manufacturers do not have to prove their products are safe or effective. And the government has taken a hands-off approach when it comes to making sure that what is listed on the label is what’s really in the bottle.

Lab Tests Yield Surprising Results

Dr. Tod Cooperman, who runs a company that analyzes supplements called Consumerlab.com, believes consumers are in the dark about what’s in the supplements. “There’s no way for a consumer to know what’s in a pill,” he tells 20/20. “The only way to know what is inside … is to test them.”

20/20 paid Consumerlab.com for a detailed analysis of tests it had done on 100 bottles of some popular herbal supplements. The results revealed one in four of the bottles did not have what the manufacturer claimed on the label.