[HN Gopher] Lead Toxicity from Ayurvedic Medicines
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Lead Toxicity from Ayurvedic Medicines
Author : geox
Score : 44 points
Date : 2023-09-17 19:06 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cmaj.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cmaj.ca)
| saiya-jin wrote:
| I loved backpacking around India and Nepal when a bit younger,
| spent 6 months there. Life-changing experience. But I was so
| careless, ate at cheapest dhabas with locals, just disinfected
| hands with now-ubiquitous gel sanitizers. Even brought back some
| ayurvedic shampoos and other products.
|
| I would love to show this experience to my kids when they will be
| a bit older, but its hard to ignore overall safety threats (ie
| food, mosquito-borne diseases, public transport, floods and
| overall climate change issues during monsoon, as Lybia showed
| recently it seems like a distant problem till its not, if
| infrastructure is not consistently high quality). No point going
| there and be there in western bubble of luxury or just sip
| mojitos in Goa.
| bell-cot wrote:
| FWIW, here's another case of toxic supplements in America. With
| neither heavy metals nor "Ayurvedic" involved:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7237a3.htm
| bell-cot wrote:
| (For the situation here, "Ayurvedic Medicines" can be read as
| "Herbal Supplements, Traditional Indian". The article notes that
| hazardous arsenic and mercury levels also seem to be common in
| Ayurvedic supplements purchased in the U.S. and Canada.)
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| They can't even keep the rubbish free of poisonous things...
| AugustoCAS wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this. A few family members consume a good
| amount of alternative medicine without any idea of what they
| consume as the products are not regulated, or they source
| products from places that make no claims that are for human
| consumption.
| pella wrote:
| Turmeric is used in Ayurveda to balance all three doshas ...
|
| related:
|
| "Turmeric's unexpected link to lead poisoning in Bangladesh
| (stanford.edu)"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36481693
| makingstuffs wrote:
| This was the first thing I thought of while reading the
| article.
| thereikiway wrote:
| There's high less content in a number of "regular" supplements ,
| too. Without third party testing it's legal to sell anything in a
| capsule and call it a supplement, at least in the usa
| johnloeber wrote:
| It is actually not legal to sell anything in a capsule and call
| it a supplement in the USA. The FDA's guidance still applies.
|
| There are lots and lots of unscrupulous online supplement
| merchants who are breaking the law.
| amriksohata wrote:
| [flagged]
| ysingh923 wrote:
| People still gain big benefits from them
|
| Citation needed.
|
| Do you have any studies conclusively showing that MSG is
| harmful?
| jokowueu wrote:
| Nothing wrong with MSG .....
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| To elaborate...
|
| MSG quickly breaks down into glutamic acid, which is found in
| a wide variety of traditional savory dishes from around the
| world. MSG was created as a product because of the discovery
| of glutamic acid's preexisting role in savory flavor
| profiles; it's not like when the guy who discovered saccharin
| accidentally transformed coal tar into something that
| coincidentally tasted sweet.
| Rewrap3643 wrote:
| The negative health effects of junk food are largely
| reversible, unlike lead poisoning.
| amriksohata wrote:
| Let me guess this study was funded by big pharma?
|
| Also why are they white washing all Ayurveda rather than the ones
| or brand they found less in?
|
| Smells a bit suspicious
| Rewrap3643 wrote:
| This is a case report of an individual that experienced lead
| poisoning from Ayurvedic supplements. It is from Canada's
| public health system.
|
| One of the linked studies which analyzed 193 supplements found
| that 39 of them were contaminated. That was funded in part by
| the US NIH, hospitals, and universities.
|
| The only thing I can see that's suspicious are the people
| pushing these harmful products.
| pengaru wrote:
| > Of these, 11 pills contained lead levels greater than the
| detection limit > and 1 pill contained 129,000 mg/g of lead
| (about 13% lead by weight), > strongly suggesting that the
| pills were the source of the lead toxicity.
|
| 13% of the pill by weight, yikes! > Four
| additional pills contained 7,900--33,000 mg/g of mercury.
| deodar wrote:
| This is horrifying. What exactly in the manufacturing process
| could cause such egregious contamination?
| pengaru wrote:
| Presumably it's upstream in the supply chain. See other
| comments about Turmeric adulterated w/lead to enhance its
| color (more $$).
| dmoy wrote:
| > and 1 pill contained 129,000 mg/g of lead (about 13% lead by
| weight)
|
| Holy shit, that's like eating a lead air rifle pellet. Probably
| worse in fact, because it'll dissolve more
| pengaru wrote:
| Nod, I'm pretty sure if you just swallowed an intact lead
| pellet you'd poop out a lead pellet.
| epoxia wrote:
| [dead]
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| This is unfortunately one of the ways that alternative medicine
| can be smeared into disrepute by the medical and pharmaceutical
| establishment. Unregulated and forced into the shadows,
| manufacturers lack accountability, and contaminants get into the
| supply chain.
|
| Of course it only takes one incident from one manufacturer to tar
| the whole line with the same brush. In this case study, there is
| one woman who was a patient at one clinic. They don't say how
| many suppliers or manufacturers were responsible for
| contamination. In the past, one bad batch of a supplement has
| been cause for the FDA to create a panic, and take regulatory
| action to ban anything they want.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Do you know what people call alternative medicine that has been
| proven to work? Medicine.
| lultimouomo wrote:
| > Unregulated and forced into the shadows, manufacturers lack
| accountability, and contaminants get into the supply chain.
|
| I mean, "unregulated" is the whole point of alternative
| medicine, isn't it? If you take an extract from some plant, do
| a double blind stuy and prove it cures something, then sell it
| following government safety regulation, that's just called
| "medicine".
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| > prove it cures something
|
| Nobody is allowed to do that.
| defensem3ch wrote:
| completely agree with this and your previous comment
| axpy906 wrote:
| Ok so it doesn't mention what she was taking. It could be
| turmeric, ashwghanda or something else. Said 4
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