Your Health: Avoid steroid-containing supplements

Supplement warning

The FDA is warning consumers not to use muscle-building supplements marketed as containing steroids or steroid-like substances.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued the warning because of reports of kidney and liver failure in five men who used the products.

The FDA identified eight supplements sold by American Cellular Labs, including MASS Xtreme and TREN Xtreme, that the agency found contain hidden and potentially hazardous synthetic steroids that have not been reviewed by the FDA for safety and effectiveness.

Critics say the FDA doesn't have enough power to sufficiently regulate nutritional supplements and that numerous other products contain the same steroids.

Less filling?

The FDA also has some reassuring news.

It says silver-colored dental fillings that contain mercury are safe, reversing an earlier caution against their use in certain patients, including pregnant women and children.

High levels of mercury have been linked with brain and kidney damage, but the levels released by dental amalgam fillings are not high enough to cause harm in patients, the agency said.

Still, in response to a lawsuit settlement with Moms Against Mercury and other groups, the FDA said the fillings are a "moderate risk" and warned against their use in patients with mercury allergies or by dentists in poorly ventilated areas.

Millions of people have the fillings, and the FDA reports 141 adverse events in 20 years. The agency does not recommend patients have the fillings removed.

Probiotics

A study of beneficial bacteria known as probiotics, like those found in some yogurt, suggests they help ward off colds and fevers in children.

The study was sponsored by Danisco, which makes probiotics, and was published in the journal Pediatrics.

Among 326 children age 3 to 5 in a child-care center in China, those who drank a combination of two bacteria cultures in their milk twice a day had fewer colds, needed fewer antibiotics, and missed less school than those who drank plain milk.

Those who got Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium animalis had 72 percent fewer fevers, 62 percent fewer coughs, and 59 percent fewer runny noses.

And when they did get sick, they recovered much faster.

The combination of probiotics tested is now sold as "HOWARU Protect."

A former director of the federal Centers for Disease Control told ABC the results were "interesting but still very preliminary."

Talk about fibroids

Causes and treatments of uterine fibroids will be the focus of a free women's health seminar hosted by Central DuPage Hospital staff members.

Dr. Nilesh Patel, an interventional radiologist, and gynecologist Victor Trinkus, who specialize in fibroids, will lead the discussion from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Wed., Aug. 26, at Faith Evangelical Church in West Chicago.