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Safety
of Supplements Unclear for Children
WASHINGTON
(Reuters Health) - US researchers warned Tuesday that the safety
and efficacy of many dietary supplements have not been tested
in children, and said that parents should exercise caution when
giving supplements to their kids.
``There's
potential for harm (in children taking dietary supplements), especially
considering that, as children, they're still growing and developing,''
Michelle Rusk, an attorney with the Federal Trade Commission's
Division of Advertising Practices, said at a meeting with the
National Institutes of Health.
Rusk was referring
to young people, particularly adolescent boys, who take ``body-building''
supplements in an effort to build strength and muscles.
``Children
may take steroid hormone supplements to emulate popular athletes,''
Rusk noted at the meeting.
For example,
while products containing gamma butyrolactone are typically marketed
for adults as performance enhancers, they can be very dangerous
for children.
``Parents
should not assume that that supplements work the same way in children
as they do in adults,'' Rusk stressed.
``While the
judicious use of dietary supplements can be viewed as a strategy
for optimizing nutrition, it remains to be resolved who will and
will not benefit from their use and under what circumstances,''
noted Dr. John Milner of the National Cancer Institute.
Researchers
can assess the ways in which a particular dietary supplement or
nutrient may affect a certain child by looking at the child's
genetic profile, dietary intake and a variety of environmental
factors, Milner noted. But he warned that as with drug trials,
the findings from dietary supplement studies will not be universally
optimistic.
``I suspect
we will find many supplements that will have a positive effect
on one tissue and a negative effect on another tissue,'' Milner
said.
Scientific
research is fast verifying a link between certain nutrients and
health benefits, such as the benefits of fiber in lowering blood
pressure or the connection between folate and the risk of developing
colon cancer, Milner pointed out.
Yet without
independent studies of the specific effects of those nutrients
in children, that know-how remains incomplete, he added. ``We
cannot assume that one size fits all,'' he said.
The US Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) currently does not regulate dietary
supplements as long as their makers market them not as treatments
for a particular disease but rather to help maintain a ``structure
or function'' of the body.
It remains
unclear whether the rising concern over the use of dietary supplements
in children will build a stronger case for the FDA's increased
regulation over the products, Dr. Steven Hirschfeld, with the
agency's Division of Oncology Drugs, told Reuters Health. ``I
personally feel that it is not safe for people to take dietary
supplements without more information,'' he said.
The surest
route to getting that information is ''regulation,'' Hirschfeld
said. However, he cautioned that any eventual FDA regulation of
dietary supplements should not ''impede marketing'' but serve
as a means to guide their development in order to ``minimize risks.''
Reference
Source 89
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