Both Medpundit and I rant on this issue consistently. Value of herbal supplements is difficult to verify. A few choice quotes from this solid report of the two-day workshop at the National Institutes of Health:

"I still have too many questions," Curt Furberg of Wake Forest University said last week at a conference sponsored by the NIH. "I couldn't recommend any supplements."

Natural garlic, soy and other herbs ingested as part of the diet apparently are healthful, studies suggest, though in most cases experts still haven't pinpointed the beneficial ingredients or how to fashion them into drugs.

...

The lack of standardization of commercially available supplements also makes them difficult to study. "We need to verify that brands contain what they are supposed to contain," Furberg says.

Consultant Stewart Ehrreich, former head of the Food and Drug Administration's division of heart and kidney drugs, adds that the FDA won't "approve a drug with 17 ingredients without knowing what the active ingredient is."

We quickly criticize the medical establishment if we champion a treatment without testing that treatment. Our standard for supplements should not be any less.

My stated philosophy makes the following article even more disturbing - A Supplemental Pitch: More doctors are selling vitamins and herbs even as scientific debate continues over the health benefits of such products..

Last week, cardiologists at a prominent Arizona clinic began advising patients to try a new, untested dietary supplement that has never before been used to treat heart disease. It's not just any supplement, the clinic says; it's a proprietary formula, designed by doctors.

The idea that top medical specialists are offering guidance in the confusing, controversial world of vitamins, herbs and nutritional products is reassuring to many patients. After all, the guidance is coming from graduates of some of our best medical schools, not holistic gurus or health food store clerks.

But there's a catch. The Arizona Heart Institute has struck a deal with the supplement's maker, Vital Living, that gives the clinic a share in profits from sales of the supplement, as well as 1 million shares of stock options in the company.

Read this article, I find it VERY disturbing. But then I am obsessed by data and ethics.