Consumer Health Digest


 * Not to be confused with Dr. Stephen Barrett's newsletter of the same name.

Consumer Health Digest or ConsumerHealthDigest.com is a popular dietary supplement product review site. As of June 27, 2017, the site had an overall Alexa rank of 42,436 and a US Alexa rank of 10,978. The site earns money from commissions on some of the products that they review, so there is a monetary incentive for positive reviews.

Staff
The review staff includes experts from fields that could in principle be relevant (MD, pharmacy, dietician), it also includes several "experts" from woo-related fields, naturopathy, osteopathy, chiropractic, Ayurveda, nutrition, and holistic health. As of 2017, the main expert staff included in the "medical", "makeup, beauty & skin care", "nutritionist", "holistic health & diet" sections are: • 2 There is also a cast of dozens of even less qualified people included in the "authors expert panel" section.

In 2018, the expert panel has been pared down to: Atanasov (above), Penny S. Brooks (registered dietician), Friedman (above), Mallory Haldeman (health & fitness coach), Tahir (above), Rosenberg (above), Carin Astrup (personal trainer), Rosa Mendes (professional wrestler), and Dennis Wolf (bodybuilder).

Review structure
A typical product review is titled, "X Review: How Safe and Effective is This Product?" With that in mind, one should expect that the review of X will actually critically review the X's safety and efficacy. Alas, there is no effort to search the medical literature on the product's ingredients. A review typically consists of the following sections: expert rating (up to 5 stars), product details or overview, specific ingredients, advantages, disadvantages, summary (or bottom line), and a links to reviews of similar products. Some herbs are also reviewed independently of commercial products. Every page contains a Quack Miranda Warning at the bottom.
 * Rating: The rating is a bit deceiving since the actual range of ratings seems to be between 2.1 and 4.8 stars, and there is no indication as to how such precise ratings are arrived at.
 * Advantages: This section can have an appeal to nature ("The ingredients are natural herbal extracts or naturally-occurring substances"), chemophobia ("It doesn’t contain harsh chemicals"), and vague testimonials ("Some people who have tried it claim it works") Appeals to nature can even appear in the same product review that seemingly questions its logical validity. For example, the review for Erectinol lists under the pros section, "Ingredients are natural", but lists under the cons section, "Contains Yohimbe which can results [sic] in brutal side effects".
 * Disadvantages: This section does sometimes give medical warnings, but does not give an indication as to what the medical information is based on. In at least one case the warnings do not even include everything that is on the product label: Consumer Health Digest states, "Yohimbe is known for causing several side effects like rapid or irregular heartbeat, stomach upset, tremor, sleep problems, anxiety and kidney failure" but there is nothing about yohimbe being a which is on the label and is a rather serious issue for people taking certain pharmaceuticals, illegal drugs and herbal medicines.

Really awful reviews
Not only does Consumer Health Digest not do much in the way of searching the scientific literature, but once a problem product appears, the website neither removes nor updates the review. These reviews are additionally poorly written by being unnecessarily wordy.

Aristolochia
The toxicity of Aristolochia was first discovered around 2000, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded that Aristolochia was a human carcinogen by 2002. By 2012, IARC concluded that the aristolochic acid that is naturally-occurring in Aristolochia is also a human carcinogen.

Consumer Health Digest has been around since 2004, but despite this, they issued a rather mealy-mouthed review of Aristolochia that was still available as of 2017. The review concluded: Aristolochic Acid does seem to have two dual sides to it. Therefore, while it does appear, it does have very visible benefits, there is another side that says to apply caution using this acid. It doesn’t matter if it is in an herbal medicine or another form. So, with this said, do consult your healthcare professional for more information on this element before attempting to use it personally for health reasons or whatever else.

In 2018, the above conclusion was revised to a word salad with a slightly better salad dressing: Albeit Aristolochic Acids has some benefits, however, this does not overshadow its toxicity. It is an inevitable fact that the Aristolochic Acids has carcinogenic properties. It causes cancer and kidney problems. It would be vital not to ingest or intake Aristolochic Acid under any circumstances. People should be cautious about the ingredients used in a product and make sure that the product label has no mention of Aristolochic Acid. What a proper review should have concluded with would be something to the effect of "Do not take products containing Aristolochia or any of its various synonyms (or any of the herbs with which it is a known substituent) under any circumstances. It causes cancer and kidney disease." Simply warning people not to take aristolochic acid is not helpful because this chemical never appears on ingredient labels and because Aristolochia has been found to be a substituent in herbal medicine, not appearing on on the ingredient label in any obvious way.

Ephedra
As of 2017, Consumer Health Digest still had positive reviews for ephedra-containing products (e.g., "Hellfire EPH 150" and "Lipodrene With Ephedra" ) even though the US FDA banned such products in 2004 over safety concerns due to cases of heart attack, stroke and death. The 2017 Lipodrene With Ephedra review concluded the following, with all the cruftiness associated with horrible writing: Even though lipodrene may help you lose weight there are other risks involved with the consumption of this pill that you must seriously take into consideration before going for it. It is strongly recommended to consult a doctor to discuss about it before trying this pill.

A 2018 revision of the conclusion stated the following: The product contains Lipodrene which might help you lose* weight. However, this supplement contains Ephedra, an ingredient which has been slammed by serious side effects which could cause deaths. Thus, the products containing Ephedra were completely banned by the FDA. We, therefore, suggest our readers consult their physicians before using this supplement in order to avoid any serious health issues. Both the 2017 and 2018 reviews gave the product 3.1 out of 5.0 stars despite the 2018 review acknowledging that the product contains a banned substance!

Betelnut
Himalaya ProstaCare is a "prostate health supplement" that includes betelnut as an ingredient. Betelnut is a human carcinogen that can cause cancers of the mouth, liver, cervical, stomach, prostate, lung, and sweat gland. Bizarrely, the Consumer Health Digest review states the opposite, "This nut is usually used to treat higher risk of prostate diseases, cancers in liver and esophagus." The review's section on side effects and warnings is vague and confusing: Some of the ingredients can cause side effects on the user. But most of it have [sic] no known side effects. But this does not mean that it is all-safe. Seek the advice of a health professional about using this supplement. Keep away from children and direct sunlight. This product is specifically formulated for men and not suitable for pregnant or nursing women. Color variations on the product are natural.

Liver toxins
In 2016, the FDA took action against three herbal supplement products for hepatotoxicity: Lipokinetix, OxyELITE Pro, and Hydroxycut. Of the three products, Consumer Health Digest has reviews of two of them, OxyElite Pro and Hydroxycut.

In the case of OxyELITE Pro, hepatoxicity was possibly due to the ingredient aegeline, a chemical extracted from the fruit of the Aegle marmelos tree. In the case of Hydroxycut, it is suspected that green tea extract caused the hepatotoxicity. In some cases, consumers of these products required a liver transplant.

In the case of OxyElite Pro, the Consumer Health Digest review warns against taking it if one has a liver disorder but does not state that the product can itself cause a liver disorder (hepatotoxicity). Though the formulation that the review gave did not include aegeline, it is not possible to tell whether the review came before or after the aegeline formulated version of OxyElite Pro since Consumer Health Digest are not dated and are not archived by the Internet Archive. In the case of Hydroxycut Sx-7, the Consumer Health Digest review does not give any warning about liver toxicity. A 2018 revision of the review now mentions hepatotoxicity, but not the FDA action against these products. The product remarkably has the same rating for both versions of the review (3.5 out of 5.0).