Lamar Odom: A Cautionary Tale For Herbal Viagra

Credit: Michael Sandoval via Wikimedia Commons and flickr

After former National Basketball Association player Lamar Odom was found unconscious in a Nevada brothel, the owner said he had consumed a large quantity of herbal Viagra and while the true cause of his condition can't yet be determined, the presence of this supplement at all is a cautionary tale for the American public, which has been been fed an extensive marketing campaign claiming dietary supplements are beneficial.

Thanks to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994, courtesy of Senators Orrin Hatch (R, UT) and Tom Harkin (D, IA), dietary supplements have been given a special niche outside drug regulations - but they should not be.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration defines a drug as A substance intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease [or] to affect the structure or any function of the body and herbal supplement labels show they are clearly sold as a way to treat or prevent disease, so it is reasonable to once again ask why this giant industry is selling drugs, the vast majority of which have never been tested, without any FDA oversight.

The industry is able to bypass the aegis of the FDA simply by using slippery language on their labels in two ways.

First, though they are not permitted to make a medical claim, though they are able to imply medical benefit indirectly by using weasel terms such as supports, (example: supports memory function, or supports prostate health). To people who are less informed about science and health, "supports" equals "treats", or even "cures."

Second, they simply have to put a disclaimer on the label: This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

The calculated wordsmanship in the DSHEA law has caused considerable harm, in three important ways. First, the FDA can only remove a supplement from the market after it has caused a problem, including deaths. Second, since supplements do not need to be tested before they are marketed, what is in the bottle is frequently unknown, in terms of composition, purity, and dose. Third, supplements perpetuate the myth that natural substances are safer than those that are man-made. This is entirely false, since some of the most potent toxins on earth come from plants. The net result is that people will gulp down handfuls of supplements, thinking that they are not taking drugs, when, in fact, they are doing just that.

Then there is the fact that they rarely work.

There is no such thing as "herbal Viagra", it is nothing more than a useless herb, unless it is combined with real Viagra a practice that is clearly illegal. Or, sometimes an "aphrodisiac" called yohimbine is added. It is plenty toxic, and cannot be sold legally in any supplement.

Its toxicity is no surprise. It interacts with many receptors not only yours, but maybe even the guy sitting next to you on the subway:



Source: Wikipedia

Although the full details of all the things Odom took are not yet known, it is known that an overdose of Viagra leads to dangerously low blood pressure, which in turn can lead to loss of consciousness and heart attacks similar to the symptoms that Odom displayed. Herbal or not, Odom took something that was very dangerous, yet was available because of a very flawed law and perhaps even criminal activity.

There cannot be a clearer example of the dangers of unregulated supplements. Perhaps this tragedy will bring this issue to light, and people may be a bit more careful before they consume untested drugs that are promoted by an industry that was created for profit, and simply uses marketing trickery to skirt real science.