The presence of hormonal components in over-the-counter dietary supplements can result in a reduction in the effectiveness of anti-cancer drugs and progression of prostate cancer getting promoted, as per researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

The findings, which appear in today’s issue of Clinical Cancer Research, endorsed the fact that patients must communicate well in advance about any existing or expected usage of all herbal or hormonal dietary supplements to the doctors before seeking any advice.

From News-Medical.Net:

“Bicalutamide is an oral nonsteroidal anti-androgen used to treat prostate cancer,” Dr. Shariat said. “The fact that this supplement caused the drug to be less effective is very troubling.”

Based on the clinical data and cell culture experiments, the researchers filed an adverse event report with the Food and Drug Administration. The government agency in turn issued a warning letter to the manufacturers, which led to the removal of the product from the market.

“Unlike prescription and over-the-counter drugs, the law does not require nutritional supplements to undergo pre-market approval for safety and efficacy,” Dr. Shariat said. “The current FDA regulatory system provides little oversight or assurances that dietary supplements will have predictable pharmacological effects or even that product labels provide accurate information for consumers.”

Dr. Roehrborn, Dr. Shahrokh Shariat, a resident in urology and the study’s lead author, and their colleagues analyzed the supplement, and found that listed ingredients on the product label were either not present or misrepresented about concentrations of the present ingredients and even failed to list all the containing steroid hormones in the product.