The FDA urges consumers to discontinue use of Hydroxycut products in order to avoid any undue risk. Adverse events are rare, but exist.
Consumers should consult a physician or other health care professional if they are experiencing symptoms possibly associated with these products.
Linda Katz, M.D.
Interim Chief Medical Officer
FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
I saw an ad for Hydroxycut in a magazine this morning and was wondering about the safety and claims made by the product. Another one of those…”looks too good to be true” and “buyer be ware.” I guess it was only been a matter of time that something would come up.
Today the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) issued an official release warning consumers to immediately stop using Hydroxycut products. To date the FDA has received 23 reports of serious health problems ranging from jaundice and elevated liver enzymes, an indicator of potential liver injury, to liver damage requiring liver transplant. In addition one death due to liver failure has been reported to the FDA.
About Hydroxycut Products
Hydroxycut products are dietary supplements that are marketed for weight-loss, as fat burners, as energy-enhancers, as low carb diet aids, and for water loss under the Iovate and MuscleTech brand names. The products are prodiced by Iovate Health Sciences Inc., of Oakville, Ontario and distributed by Iovate Health Sciences USA Inc. of Blasdell, N.Y.
Return Products to Place of Purchase
Consumers who have any of the products involved in the recall are advised to stop using them and to return them to the place of purchase. The agency has not yet determined which ingredients, dosages, or other health-related factors may be associated with risks related to these Hydroxycut products. The products contain a variety of ingredients and herbal extracts.
List of Hydroxycut Products being Recalled:
The list of products being recalled by Iovate currently includes:
We’ve been doing a garden at our house with the girls for the past 4 years. As they have grown they are able to do more. Needless to say, I was very happy to hear that the Obamas were starting a garden at the White House for the first time since the first time since first lady Eleanor Roosevelt planted her “Victory Garden” during World War II.
Michelle Obama shared her thoughts on the garden:
We want to use it as a point of education, to talk about health and how delicious it is to eat fresh food, and how you can take that food and make it part of a healthy diet.
Michelle Obama
This video shows twenty-six elementary schoolchildren wielded shovels, rakes, pitchforks and wheelbarrows to help first lady Michelle Obama break ground on a produce and herb garden on the White House grounds.
Michael Pollen, author of Omnivores Dilemma and advocate for agricultural reform had this to say about the garden.
A garden like this is one of those small gestures that is powerfully symbolic…it teaches important habits of mind — helping people to reconnect with their food, eat more healthily on a budget and recognize that we’re less dependent on the industrial food chain, and cheap fossil fuel, than we assume.
A new study came out this week in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrating what many of us have been saying for years. With dieting, it doesn’t matter what diet you are on, what matters is that you are eating less (or taking in fewer calories) than you are expending.
Calories In = Calories Out
If you eat more than you burn up for the day, you will gain weight.
If you eat less than you burn up for the day, you will loose weight.
Or in more technical terms, the conclusions of the published study:
Reduced-calorie diets result in clinically meaningfulweight loss regardless of which macronutrients they emphasize.
The Study
In the study 811 overweight adults were randomly assigned to one of four diets with varying percentages of energy derived from fat, protein and carbs. Each of the diets consisted of similar foods and all met guidelines for cardiovascular health.
Participants were followed for a period of 2 years. They were also offered group and individual instruction sessions during this time.
The main outcome measured at the end of 2 years was the change in body weight. Among the 80% of participants who completed the study, the average weight loss was 4 kg (8.8 lbs.). A smaller percentage 14 – 15% experienced a reduction of at least 10% of their initial body weight. This study also found that attendance at group sessions was strongly associated with weight loss.
A new study published in January’s Issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine is demonstrating that the ratio of sodium to potassium may be more important than the amount of sodium or potassium alone.
Senior author Dr. Paul Whelton from Loyloa University Health System was quoted as saying:
There isn’t as much focus on potassium, but potassium seems to be effective in lowering blood pressure and the combination of a higher intake of potassium and lower consumption of sodium seems to be more effective than either on its own in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Potassium Rich Foods
In general, the more processed a food is, the more sodium and less potassium a food has. The diagram from the textbook Understanding Nutrition shows the differences in how much sodium vs. potassium are in food that has been processed or food that has not been processed.
One way of getting plenty of potassium is to be sure to eat a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables. Some examples of Potassium Rich foods:
One Banana – 400 mg Potassium
One Potato – 900 mg Potassium
One cup Spinach – 950 mg Potassium
1/2 cup Raisins – 600 mg Potassium
8 ounces (one cup) Orange Juice – 500 mg Potassium
I’ve mentioned in lecture I believe we’re eventually going to be viewing food more like a drug; this news report has a bit of with a big of a lecture by Dr. Russell Blaylock on Nutrition & Behavior.
An interesting news report that takes a look at the effect of Sugar, Alcohol and Sweeteners and how these may explain children’s behavior, poor performance, criminal behavior and perhaps even the growing numbers of Alzheimer’s patients.
You can find out more about Dr. Blaylock’s lecture at www.atavistik.com.
The Environment Working Groups Guide is now in its 5th edition. It features the 12 fruits and veggies with the most and least pesticides so you’ll know which ones to buy organic, and which conventionally-grown ones are okay when organic isn’t available.
Note: The Environmental Working Group ranked a total of 44 different fruits and vegetables but grapes are listed twice because they looked at both domestic and imported samples.
A study published in the The Journal of Law and Economics by researchers at the City University of New York is showing what many parents and teachers already knew to be true, that television ads are contributing to childhood obesity.
In a research study supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases researchers Chou, Rashad and Grossman estimated that the effects of television fast-food restaurant advertising on children and adolescents are playing a role with children being overweight.
These researches predict that a ban on fast-food restaurant advertising would reduce the number of overweight children ages 3–11 in a fixed population by 18 percent and would reduce the number of overweight adolescents ages 12–18 by 14 percent.
In addition, eliminating the tax deductibility of junk food advertising would produce more declines of between 5 and 7 percent in these outcomes.
With estimates that children see over 30,000 television commercials a year and a third of them are for junk food, it is likely that eliminating junk food ads would go a long way in helping manage the advertising world’s contribution to promoting childhood obesity.
These findings go along with earlier ones conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation which found that “The vast majority of the foods that kids see advertised on television today are for products that nutritionists would tell us they need to be eating less of, not more of, if we’re going to get a handle on childhood obesity.”
In Fall 2008, the U.S. Department of Agriculture launched the My Pyramid for Preschoolers Website just for Preschoolers, children aged 2-5. The site encourages parents and caregivers to
Use MyPyramid to help your preschooler eat well, be active, and be healthy.
Customized MyPyramid for Your Preschooler
Visitors to the My Pyramid for Preschoolers Web site can “get a customized MyPyramid Plan for your preschooler” by entering the child’s first name, age, gender, and typical amount of daily activity. The site then generates a plan tailored to that child.
A news item update from a colleague on a new article published in the PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science) looking at the prevalence of corn isotopes in fast foods.
This new study researchers from the University of Hawaii sampled food from McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s chains and then used stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis to trace the input materials from these large fast food chains.
From these findings they were able to infer the source of feed to meat animals, the source of fat within fries, and the extent of fertilization and confinement inherent to production.
What they discovered was the overwhelming majority of American fast food is based on a single source – corn. This study highlights the overwhelming importance of corn agriculture within virtually every aspect of fast food manufacturing. The presence of corn in so much of the food has some pretty striking implications.
…the fact that so much of said food can be traced back to corn has environmental implications. Corn feed is relatively cheap and provides farmers with a way of maximising the calories that their animals are eating for minimum cost.
But corn agriculture in the US is encouraged by heavy government subsidies, but has been criticised for being environmentally unsustainable. It encourages heavy use of both fertiliser (as revealed by the nitrogen isotope analysis) and pesticides.
if we eat just one hamburger, one chicken sandwich and one small order of fries we will be getting 50% of our recommended calories for the day, 80% of our carbs and 75% of our protein (90% for women). We would also be getting a full day’s worth of saturated fat. And all for just about $3.
This is a pretty remarkable nutritional bargain, but of course there are hidden costs (beyond the heart attack on a plate aspect). Corn as a feedstock is not only wasteful but highly subsidized. Our cheap meal is being paid for in other ways (taxes).
Bottom Line
While fast food may be tempting, because it is cheap and inexpensive, you may ultimately be paying for it in several ways, not only through poor nutrition, high calories and high fat intake, but also by supporting corn as a wasteful, subsidized and environmentally unsustainable food source.
The FDA urges consumers to discontinue use of Hydroxycut products in order to avoid any undue risk. Adverse events are rare, but exist.Hydroxycut Regular Rapid Release Caplets
A new study published in January’s Issue of the 
A study published in the The Journal of Law and Economics by researchers at the City University of New York is showing what many parents and teachers already knew to be true, that television ads are contributing to childhood obesity.
Visitors to the My Pyramid for Preschoolers Web site can “get a customized MyPyramid Plan for your preschooler” by entering the child’s first name, age, gender, and typical amount of daily activity. The site then generates a plan tailored to that child.
You can raise a healthy eater by setting a good example and practicing positive habits. 
This new study researchers from the University of Hawaii sampled food from McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s chains and then used stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis to trace the input materials from these large fast food chains.
…the fact that so much of said food can be traced back to corn has environmental implications. Corn feed is relatively cheap and provides farmers with a way of maximising the calories that their animals are eating for minimum cost.
