Oct. 24, 2023 – Certain products marketed for arthritis and pain management could contain hidden ingredients that could harm consumers, according to an FDA warning.
Some of these products have active ingredients found in prescription drugs.
“These products may cause potentially serious side effects and may interact with medications or dietary supplements a consumer is taking,” the FDA said in a statement. “It is clear from the results of our decade of testing that retailers and distributors, including online marketplaces, do not effectively prevent these types of potentially harmful products from being sold to consumers.”
Over 10 years of testing, the FDA identified 22 arthritis and pain products with ingredients not disclosed on the product label. These hidden ingredients can be active, meaning they have a direct effect on the body, or inactive, said Candy Tsourounis, PharmD, a professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco. Ibuprofen, for example, is the active ingredient in Advil. Inactive ingredients are things like preservatives, flavoring, and dyes.
These types of products likely target underserved and immigrant communities, said Pieter Cohen, MD, a primary care doctor and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, who studies dietary supplements. They might be sold in mom-and-pop shops or gas stations to people with limited access to health care or insurance, he said.
Tsourounis advises anyone taking any of the listed products to stop right away and contact their care team. They can provide safer recommendations for managing symptoms and may suggest testing, like checking kidney function. Any side effects or adverse events that could be related to the use of these products can be reported to FDA’s MedWatch Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program.
The FDA warned that this list included “only a small fraction of the potentially dangerous products marketed to consumers online and in stores. Even if a product is not included in this list, consumers should exercise caution before using these types of arthritis and pain management products.”