Some Herbal Sleep Products Lack Key Claimed Ingredient

Alternative Sleep Medicine
Only nine of the seventeen Valerian products passed the ConsumerLab.com’s testing. For products completely lacked the marker compounds that identify the presence of Valeriana Officinalis and four others has roughly half the amount of the expected levels. Results were confirmed in a second independent laboratory.

“This is a real problem that people may literally be losing sleep over. Of additional concern, however, is the possibility that products which totally lacked the expected marker were made from an inappropriate species of valerian,” said Tod Cooperman, M.D., ConsumerLab.com’s president.

Products made from some species other than Valeriana Officinalis can be rich in a compound called didrovaltrate, which laboratory testing shows to be toxic to cells.

Dr. Cooperman added, “This type of error has been known to occur with valerian material in the market. If you are going to use Valeriana, it would seem wise to stick to those products that passed the testing.”

The complete list of valerian products that passed the review as well as ConsumerTips on buying and using valerian are now available at www.consumerlab.com. General findings and examples of approved products are also available for free from the website. Similar information is available online for Asian and American ginseng, calcium, CoQ10, Echinacea, Ginkgo biloba, MSM, SAM-e, St. John’s wort, and others.

Valerian is a very good for sleep, but be sure that you are buying medicine not poison.