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A Tablets & Capsules April 2017 32C ingredients Researchers investigate the promise of botanicals Karina Basso Associate Editor Manufacturers bring dietary supplements to market to satisfy con- sumer preferences, but the products often arrive with little research that supports claims about their safety and benefits. A few scien- tists, however, are studying the safety and efficacy of botanicals used in dietary supplements. cademics and medical professionals acknowledge the benefits of dietary supplements—at least some of them— and many physicians even recommend them. Nonetheless, the dietary supplement industry is often rapped for offering new products before there is much scientific evidence to show they're safe and efficacious. Indeed, few manufactures are willing to sponsor clinical studies to find such evidence. And that's understandable. Not only are the studies costly, but publicizing the results could benefit their competitors. While academics face the same study costs, they don't have to justify their work in business terms, and they don't need to meet the fickle desires of consumers. They're only interested in assessing the medical value of dietary supple- ments, which include a variety of botanical substances. William Folk is a researcher at the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO. He said more research on dietary supplements is sorely needed. "More than half of the American public uses dietary supplements, but there is so little information about these products, and they are not well regulated. However, many scientists complain that studying dietary supplements is a total waste of time and say we should be spending money on drug design and developing new drugs and their targets." That hasn't stopped Folk and other botanical researchers from doing their work. "We are well recog- nized and respected by the experts in our field," said Richard van Breemen, director of the Center for Botanical Dietary Supplements Research at the University of Illinois in Chicago. He said more collaboration with the dietary supplement industry would be beneficial. "If dietary sup- plement manufacturers can put on their labels that they invested in studies that provide evidence of their products' safety and efficacy, I think it would help them sell more and it would ultimately benefit the consumers." Guilio Maria Pasinetti is the director of the Center for Molecular Integrative Neuroresilience, New York, NY, which studies how botanical dietary supplements can reduce stress-induced psychological impairments, such as mood and neurodegenerative disorders. "In my opinion, as much as 60 percent of nutraceuticals on the market don't fulfill the public's expectations," he said. "I'm con- cerned that many companies that sell nutraceuticals make health claims that are not backed by rigorous scientific investigation. We want to provide background and evi- dence on dietary supplements to reassure the public what is really going on inside the field of the research and not to simply trust what is printed on the bottle." Potential balms for stress, other maladies Pasinetti's research focuses on polyphenols—natural substances found in grapes—and how they affect the human microbiome. "Basically our guts' microbes have the capacity to metabolize these polyphenols and gener- ate bioactive polyphenol metabolites. Once we under- stand the mechanism of action, we may be able to gener- ate some kind of probiotic to promote activity of these microbes and promote the body's resistance to psycho- logical stress and cognitive decline." The potential is great, but the possible drawbacks are, too. "As researchers, we have to ask ourselves that if active polyphenol metabolites are doing something good here in the gut, are they doing something harmful somewhere else? Is there a cancellation effect? Is there synergism?" Van Breemen is also concerned about how drug products and botanicals interact. He and his team at the University of Illinois are researching hops and licorice, which have estro- genic properties that can relieve menopausal symptoms and may slow the progress of cancer, heart disease, dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and diabetes. "We are currently looking at hops from a safety perspective in a clinical trial and testing for possible interactions with common drugs. If they are