Nutrition

Dietary Supplements Responsible for 23,000 ER Visits Annually

Dietary supplements are responsible for an estimated 23,000 emergency department (ED) visits each year in the United States, according to results from a recent study.

While nutritional supplements are widely used in the United States, little data exists on the rates of adverse reactions these vitamins and minerals are associated with.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

RELATED CONTENT
Vitamins and Dietary Supplements: Controversy and Confusion
Could Dietary Supplements Increase Your Risk of Cancer?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To further examine this association, researchers from the FDA and CDC collected data from a nationally representative sample of 3667 visits to 63 EDs in the US between 2004 and 2013.

Overall, researchers estimated that 23,005 ED visits per year were the result of adverse events related to dietary supplements, resulting in an estimated 2154 hospitalizations annually.

Visits most commonly involved adults between 20 and 34 years of age and unsupervised young children.

After excluding data from unsupervised children, researchers found that 65.9% of ED visits involved herbal or complementary nutritional products, predominantly for weight loss or increased energy, and 31.8% involved micronutrients. Weight loss and energy products caused 71.8% of supplement-related adverse cardiovascular events, including palpitations, chest pain, or tachycardia. Chocking, pill-induced dysphagia, and globus were responsible for 37.6% of ED visits in adults over 65 years old.

The study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Geller A, Shehab N, Weidle N, et al. Emergency department visits for adverse events related to dietary supplements. N Engl J Med. 2015; 373:1531-1540.