Industry News - March 1999

When Negative Studies Are Positive

CHICAGO—Most people in the natural products industry were pleased with the AMA's November 1998 theme issues dedicated to alternative medicine, with articles appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and nine AMA Archives journals.

Even studies concluding certain herbs were ineffective did not negate the products' worth as much as they helped define their proper use. A case in point is the echinacea study published in AMA's Archives of Family Medicine. No doubt many retailers were inundated with customers asking if the newspaper headlines were true, that echinacea does not work for cold sufferers. Study authors actually wrote that echinacea was no more effective than placebo in preventing colds—but acknowledged that echinacea may reduce the severity and duration of cold symptoms.

"In this case the popular press has misinformed the public," says Mark Blumenthal, executive director of the American Botanical Council in Austin, Texas. "This new research suggests that echinacea may not prevent a cold, but it does not invalidate previous research that shows its effectiveness for treatment."

The authors also readily admitted to study weaknesses. Three in particular: only 244 people participated in the study whereas 1,000 were preferred; two types of echinacea were used (E. angustifolia, E. purpurea) instead of just one, which skews results; and participants were asked to guess which treatment they were receiving midway through the study which "casts further doubts on our findings," noted the authors.

Another negative study, published in JAMA, reports that hydroxycitric acid (HCA), derived from Garcinia cambogia and routinely used in herbal weight-loss formulas, works no better than placebo when used with a high-fiber diet.

"We've learned from this [JAMA] study that it's best not to take HCA with a high-fiber diet," says Todd Norton, executive vice president for Sabinsa Corp. in Piscataway, N.J., a product supplier for the study. "We don't want people thinking HCA doesn't work. An earlier study published in 1998 in FASEB Journal showed a higher carbohydrate diet combined with HCA had favorable results. People need to understand the best way to use it."

—Todd Runestad