Dietary Supplements Could Cause 23,000 ER Visits Per Year
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diego_cervo/iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — A new study estimates that dietary supplements cause 23,000 emergency department visits each year among Americans.
According to the research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believe up to 23,000 emergency room visits annually could be brought on by adverse effects of dietary supplements. Further, the study finds that the same events lead to more than 2,000 hospitalizations per year.
Many of the hospitalizations, about 28 percent according to the study, involve young adults between the ages of 20 and 34.
Researchers said that taking out the case involving children, largely involving unsupervised ingestion, about two-thirds of the emergency room visits were related to herbal or complementary nutritional products, many of which are used for weight loss or energy. Those products can often lead to heart palpitations, rhythm disturbances and/or chest pain.
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