I wrote about supplements earlier, and here is some more information from the September 2010 issue of Consumer Reports. It is more wide-ranging than last month’s article, which focused on weight loss supplements.

In 2009. Americans spent $26.7 billion on dietary supplements. The Food and Drug Administration nominally has the job of overseeing the supplement industry, but has little power to do so, and apparently, little will. In addition, China is a major supplier of raw supplement ingredients, and has a well-documented history of exporting contaminated products. In any case, supervision is haphazard, disjointed, and ineffective. The FDA has managed to ban only 1 ingredient, ephedrine alkaloids, and that took 10 years, despite its implication in thousands of adverse events, including a few deaths.

Consumers Reports, working with the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database, identified the 12 most dangerous ingredients, based on their history of adverse events, their possible effectiveness (if any) for the claimed use, and their availability. The Dirty Dozen are:

• aconite
• bitter orange
• chaparral
• colloidal silver
• coltsfoot
• comfrey
• country mallow
• germanium
• greater celandine
• kava
• lobelia
• yohimbe

If you are determined to take supplements anyway, other than those listed above, here are 6 steps you can take to help ensure that the supplements you take are safe and beneficial:

• Consult your doctor and/or pharmacist. Sometimes it’s the interaction of the things you take that causes a problem, not just the drugs or supplements themselves.
• Be especially wary of supplements for weight loss, bodybuilding , and sexual enhancement – that’s where a lot of problems have surfaced.
• Look for the “USP Verified” mark, which denotes that the manufacturer voluntarily asked for review by US Pharmacopeia, a trusted, non-profit, standards-setting authority.
• Avoid megadoses. It is possible to overdose even on beneficial ingredients.
• Report any bad symptoms to your doctor and have him/her relay any serious problems on to the FDA.
• Research right. Don’t take claims for granted. Check out the National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements, the FDA and Consumer Reports Health .

This article originally appeared in the August edition of the Healthy Habituator, our monthly e-newsletter filled with “all the fit news to email”. Want to receive your own copy direct to your inbox? Sign up is in the left column!

We’ve searched the internet, and here are some interesting articles we found.

Four types of exercises that are beneficial for those with arthritis

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The more people use quality online weight management programs, the better they kept the weight off

Tips to follow to safely eat eggs – especially important with the recent news of contamination

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To beat the heat, get used to it - think this would help us in the Mid-South? It’s important to remember to take it easy when you begin working out in much hotter conditions.

Can you be both fit and fat? This article suggests that fat is not a good measure of cardiovascular fitness -

Most of us could lose weight by eating 1500 calories a day. Here’s what that would look like:

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Hunger is a double edged sword in this great land of ours. Too many people go hungry every day, and way too many people are overweight (2/3 of our population). I don’t know how to fix the problem of too little food, but I can help with the overeating side.

Hunger is defined as the physical need for food, while appetite is the psychological drive to eat. In a land of plenty, we must learn to recognize true hunger and to master our appetite. Many people find a hunger scale useful, in which you consciously and carefully rate your hunger from 1 to 10, with 1 being starvation, 5 being neutral, and 10 being stuffed to the gills. Once you understand how to gauge your true hunger, you can make better decisions about whether to eat or not.

Of course, to make this work, you have to master your appetite; that is, you have to overcome those often-unconscious triggers that lead you to want to eat even though you’re really not hungry. These triggers can be specific to individuals, but there are some common ones. These include boredom, stress, availability of food, time of day, aroma, watching TV, going to a movie, host expectations, and cultural norms.

What can you do to improve your control of the whole eating process? Here are some tips:

1) implement the hunger scale and eat only when you’re at stage 1, 2 or 3

2) try not to get to stage 1 or even 2; eat when you’re at 3 so you have more control

3) plan ahead to take healthy snacks to keep yourself at 3 or above

4) eat meals and snacks that feature complex, fiber-rich carbohydrates, protein, and then fat in that order of prominence to feel more full for a longer time

5) study your eating habits to identify the triggers that lead you to eat unconsciously

6) develop strategies for overcoming those triggers

7) order smaller size meals in restaurants, have doggie bags delivered with the meal, and divide the food immediately so you can’t overeat

8) drink water when you think you’re hungry and before meals to fill up your stomach

So, who’s hungry – truly – like a 1, 2 or 3? Who just thinks they might be hungry? Whoknows the difference? Which one are you?

This article originally appeared in the February 2010 issue of The Healthy Habituator, our montly e-newsletter. Interested in getting it delivered to your inbox every month? Submit your email address in the box in the left-hand column.