Endocrinologists Launch Review of Nutraceuticals - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included
ATLANTA — A task force to create practical guidelines for the use of “nutraceuticals” and other dietary supplements has been established by the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists.
“We will assess and evaluate nutraceuticals the way we would assess anything else–by looking at the evidence,” task force chairman Dr. Jeffrey Mechanick said at the association’s annual meeting.
The guidelines project is just getting underway, but he believes that the AACE could be the first physicians’ organization to come out with guidelines that address the use of nutraceuticals for a specific set of disorders.
The emerging consensus defines nutraceuticals as dietary supplements delivering a presumed bioactive agent derived from food sources, but in a nonfood matrix at concentrations far higher than could feasibly be obtained from the source food, and used for specific health-enhancing effects. The definition is broad enough to encompass an astonishingly wide variety of substances, ranging from familiar antioxidant vitamins, to animal products like shark cartilage or bovine colostrum.
Dr. Mechanick, an endocrinologist in the nutritional support unit at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, said endocrinologists are particularly concerned about fresh glandular extracts, which some patients use as “natural” alternatives to synthetic hormones, and hormonal supplements such as melatonin and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), which are obtainable without a prescription and have potential endocrine effects.