Health-Food-Store Safari

June 11, 2001 -- Six feet tall and bright purple and orange, the attractive display of gummy bears welcomed us to the health food store.

This clearly was not the granola-and-brown-rice health store of my college days. But I was prepared -- at my side was dietitian Nancy Anderson, RD, MPH, an expert on heart-healthy food and coordinator of the nutrition program for The Emory University Heart Center in Atlanta.

Other members of our health-food safari included Anderson's two young children, who immediately clamored for the sticky, animal-shaped treats. But what manner of beast were they -- and what were they doing in a health food store?

"It says 'Supplement for Kids,' and on the back you can see it gives the nutritional information, the ingredients being corn sugar, cane sugar, citric acid, lactic acid, and then flavors," Anderson says as we study the candy-wrapper-like package. "So it is a gummy-bear type thing that is fortified with vitamin C, vitamin A, and vitamin E. It is a candy disguised in part as a vitamin supplement."

We let the youngest child open one of the packages. We'd only just entered the store, and already we'd made a mistake.

Herbs and Supplements on Parade

Our trip to this typical health-food grocery was inspired by a recent talk by Isadore Rosenfeld, MD, Rossi Distinguished Professor of Clinical Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, in New York City. Rosenfeld, author of several books on nutrition and alternative medicine, spoke at a recent meeting of the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine.

"Many of my patients were buying up a store of herbs and adding them with abandon to whatever I had prescribed," Rosenfeld says. "My patients thought there was nothing wrong with taking herbs because they are a natural product and can do no harm. At first I said, 'It's garbage, but if you want to waste your time and money go ahead -- it won't do any harm.' But then I began to think this was intellectually dishonest. So I reviewed the world literature in some detail."

Rosenfeld found that some of these supplements worked quite well -- and that others could be quite dangerous, especially for patients taking several kinds of prescription drugs. And he found that he was not the only doctor whose patients wanted to know more about alternative medicine.

"I believe there are about 60 medical schools that have started [classes] on alternative medicines," he says. "You never see 'alternative' used any more: now it is 'integrative' and 'complementary' medicines." And there is now a greater tendency to use these herbs together with tried-and-true scientific methods. Much of what was folklore is being looked into by doctors. Interest in herbal medicine will expand. As the population ages there is now a greater incidence of degenerative diseases -- and there is not much we as doctors can do for these. And these herbs cost infinitely less than many drugs."