Herbal stimulant 'should be banned'

Products containing ephedra, or ma-haung, are used to promote weight-loss and boost energy.

But it is known to cause side-effects including anxiety, insomnia, raised blood pressure and heart rate, and even potentially fatal heart attacks and strokes.

Researchers from the San Francisco VA Medical Center say their findings suggest the US Food and Drug Administration should either better regulate ephedra or ban it altogether.

" Ephedra is hundreds of times riskier than other commonly used herbs "
Dr Stephen Bent, Researcher

In the UK, the sale of ephedra is already restricted so products containing less than 1,800 milligrams can only be sold following a consultation with a herbal medicine practitioner.

Products containing higher doses of ephedra can only be sold in pharmacies.

Risks

Information was collected from the American Association of Poison Control Centers, which receives the majority of its calls from the public, rather than professionals.

Researchers compared reports of "adverse events" which mentioned ephedra compared to other herbal remedies.

They then looked at how much of each product was sold and assessed the risk associated with each one.

In 2001, products containing ephedra accounted for just 1% of herbal supplement sales but 62% of herbal-related reports made to poison control centres

They calculated the risk posed by using ephedra is 200 times greater than the risks posed by all other herbal supplements combined.

They also suggested using ephedra was 100 times riskier than using kava, and up to 720 times riskier than using ginkgo biloba.

Dr Stephen Bent, who led the research, said: "The markedly elevated relative risks observed with ephedra-containing products were stable over a wide range of estimates of ephedra sales"

He added: "The argument has always been that ephedra is safe because it is natural and has been used for thousands of years.

"Our study shows that ephedra is hundreds of times riskier than other commonly used herbs."

Dr Michael Shlipak, who also worked on the study, said: "Our study shows that ephedra is unsafe for routine and unsupervised use.

"The regulation of ephedra is an important issue that currently has the attention of the US Congress and the Bush administration, and we hope that our study will inform that decision."

The research is published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.