Harvard Study: Avoid Higenamine Supplements

According to a new study from Harvard University, consumers should avoid all nutritional supplements containing higenamine, a natural stimulant.

Food supplements containing ephedra or ephedrine.

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"If you quote higenamine on the label, do not buy it," said Pieter Cohen, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston, who led the new research, published in the journal Clinical Toxicology. Norcoclaurine and Demethylcoclaurine are different names for the same botanical ingredient.

Cohen and his colleagues found higenamine in 24 readily available supplements marketed for weight loss and energy improvement. In some cases, the doses were a dozen times higher than those that had been tested in humans.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) banned homogenous in the last year as a performance enhancing substance.

Sales of dietary supplements and multivitamins reached $ 20.7 billion last year in the United States, according to Euromonitor International, which tracks the sector but not sales of specific ingredients.

There has not been much research on higenamine, but it has been proven that it can accelerate the heart, just like the ephedra supplement that was removed from the US market in 2004 for causing strokes and heart attacks. heart attack.

In China, where most of the research has taken place, scientists are using higenamine in heart stress tests because it weighs more on the heart to pump blood, said Cohen, also an internist at Cambridge Health. Alliance.

Higenamine was mainly administered directly in the blood at doses of about 2.5 to 5 milligrams, he added.

But over-the-counter products are sold without any dosage information, so that consumers do not know how much they are getting. And Cohen's analysis reveals that some supplements contain up to 60 mg of higenamine per serving – and more than 100 mg per day.

According to Mr. Cohen, ingestion of the higenamine instead of injecting it into the bloodstream probably reduces the amount that reaches the heart, but no reliable study shows the safety of taking Oral higenamine at doses greater than 5 mg.

Although most competitive athletes have stopped using higenamine after it has been banned, it is still on the shelf. Kamal Patel, co-founder of Examine.com, an independent database on nutrition and supplements, said he thought non-athletes could still use it to treat coughs and asthma. and other ingredients to promote fat loss.

Endurance athletes looking for a quick boost could take it too, he said, "although the half-life is really short, which limits its usefulness for many." endurance activities.

The supplement has never been studied for weight loss, and Cohen said he could not see how it would help a person lose weight, although a faster heart rate might make you think of something. "It seems like a crazy way to try to lose weight," said Cohen.

Federal regulations require manufacturers to understand the safety of the ingredients as intended for use on a product label, said Duffy MacKay of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a Washington-based lobbying and trade group. His organization runs a database called Supplement OWL to allow companies to make their lists of ingredients available to the public and to provide confidential information to government authorities.

Higenamine may be a case, he said, where government regulators should step in and explore the data.

But everyone is responsible for the proper use of supplements, he said.

"Consumers have a role to play in not being gullible, particularly in the area of ​​weight loss," said MacKay. "And make sure they buy brands that they know and trust and talk to their doctors – and do not get carried away in any of these products that makes us all hurt."

Cohen said that people should avoid supplements that suggest that they will improve the performance of the workout, especially if they contain higenamine. "Because it's just a dozen ingredients that will likely have real effects, but you do not know how much you'll get," he said. In addition, there is probably no research on how the ingredients interact. "These are not just benevolent placebos, they are often powerful drugs," he said.

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