A call to the greatest surveillance. In a notice published this Wednesday, March 5, ANSES, the National Agency for Food, Environmental and Labor Safety, asked “not to consume food supplements based on the Garcinia Cambogia plant.”
Although this plant has already been forbidden to make medications in France since 2012, it has been in several hundred food supplements, mainly sold online as “appetite suppressor”, which is promised to “reduce fat storage” or “the feeling of hunger.”
However, these supplements can also mask serious and potentially fatal adverse effects observed in several countries, warns the health authority.
A deadly case in France
Anses carries out this conclusion after having analyzed a mortal case of acute hepatitis in France and many cases of serious effects reported in the territory, as well as in Italy, the United States, Canada and Korea in particular, even in people without medical history.
Between 2009 and March 2024, 38 cases of undesirable effects in France were reported: liver, psychiatric, digestive (pancreatitis), cardiac and muscle, often serious.
These effects can manifest in people with a history of psychiatric disorders, pancreatitis or hepatitis, or suffer diabetes, obesity or hypertension, details the National Health Security Agency. They can also affect people who take antidepressants, antiretroviral treatments or known medications to affect liver function.
In Italy, a 45-year-old woman, who had taken a dietary supplement based on the GARCINIA GUMMI-GUTITA plant (her other name) while being treated against asthma by a medication that is known to affect the liver function, died of acute hepatitis.
But the equally severe effects, which can be increased by drug interactions, have been informed in consumers without medical history, underlines the French agency.
“The game is not worth the candle”
“A 32 -year -old woman, without medical history, presented a myocarditis that led her to have a heart transplant”, a case cited in the medical literature, reports the Aymoral Dopter, head of the Risk Assessment Unit related to nutrition.
“Some people will tell you: ‘I have taken it and everything is fine, much better for them. But we see through these few cases that people who simply sought to lose weight have encountered their healthy health, or even died after the taking of this plant,” he said.
“The game is not worth it: risking this type of very severe adverse effect does not seem reasonable to us,” says Anses manager.
Towards a European prohibition?
Currently, European regulations do not oppose the use of health claims (“weight control”, “reduction in fat storage” and “feeling of hunger”, “blood sugar levels and cholesterol” …) highlighted by manufacturers of nutrition -based supplement based on Garcinia Cambogia. They are being examined by the European Food Security Agency (EFSA).
EFSA has also launched an assessment of the risks associated with the ingestion of hydroxychitric acid, present in the fruit of this plant, a substance to which weight loss is assigned.
This experience could lead to the European agency to restrict or even prohibit this substance.
The French agency hopes that the lists specified by the plants authorized in food supplements, as well as the restrictions and warnings that frame their use, not harmonized at the moment at the EU level, will be born in Europe.
She recalls that “weight loss without medical indication has risks, especially when the person adopts unbalanced and small diverse food practices.”
ANSES has no police health powers, a possible prohibition of products based on Garcinia Cambogia is the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture. The latter, requested by AFP, said he could not give “clarification at this stage”, remembering that it was a “self -assessment in Anses.”
Source: BFM TV
