Ephedra is Ephedrine used as a dietary supplement for the purpose of speeding
up metabolism supposedly for weight loss and/or the building up of muscle
mass.  It is found in Metabolite and other preparations and is a heart and
nervous system stimulant.  It is also known as Ma Huang.

Ephedra alkaloids are now a litigator's dream with an incredible amount of
lawsuits pending.  In fact, if you do a search on Ephedra, you are likely to
come up with several law firms that are soliciting damage litigation against
the product.  Relatively young people have had cardiovascular events
supposedly as a result of this supplement.  There have been deaths.  See the
following law firm site for more info - they actually have quite a few good
links here:
http://www.ephedrahotline.com/html/news.html

As for breastfeeding, ephedrine is listed in Hale as an anti-asthmatic nose
drop preparation that "on an acute basis, it is not likely to harm a
breastfeeding infant."
However, we need more information concerning the dosage, etc. in the Ephedra
dietary supplement.  The FDA is telling pregnant mothers to avoid this, but I
see no mention about breastfeeding mothers.

Ruth Scuderi
Westfield, MA

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