Doctor warns five common supplements can cause deadly heart attacks and liver failure

A top heart doc­tor has revealed the insid­i­ous sup­ple­ments and cap­sules that could increase your risk of a heart attack as well as liv­er fail­ure.

Dr Evan Levine, a car­di­ol­o­gist at Mount Sinai in New York, told DailyMail.com that cer­tain vit­a­min and plant-based sup­ple­ments can cause long-term dam­age to the body.

He also not­ed that apart from this, cer­tain gel cap­sules can also harm heart health — paving the way for strokes.

Accord­ing to the CDC, over 800,000 Amer­i­cans either expe­ri­ence a heart attack or stroke each year.

About 138,000 Amer­i­cans died from stroke in 2020 while one Amer­i­can dies of some form of heart dis­ease every 33 sec­onds. How­ev­er, an increas­ing num­ber of young adults have recent­ly report­ed suf­fer­ing an attack.

About 5million Amer­i­cans have some form of liv­er dis­ease and near­ly 60,000 peo­ple die from liv­er fail­ure each year.

So, while tak­ing sup­ple­ments may seem like the healthy thing to do, if you’re not tak­ing them cor­rect­ly, they could do more harm than good.

Here are the five sup­ple­ments Dr Levine warned were the most dan­ger­ous for heart and liv­er health:

Niacin (Vitamin B3) 

Niacin, also known as Vit­a­min B3, plays a vital role in var­i­ous bod­i­ly func­tions, includ­ing ener­gy pro­duc­tion, ner­vous sys­tem, skin and diges­tive reg­u­la­tion. 

Food items such as red meat, fish, brown rice, nuts, seeds, legumes and bananas are typ­i­cal­ly excel­lent sources of the cru­cial vit­a­min.  

How­ev­er at times, it may be pre­scribed as a sup­ple­ment to those with high cho­les­terol lev­els and for arthri­tis relief.

But accord­ing to Dr Levine, con­sum­ing niacin can cause dam­age to the heart as it caus­es inflam­ma­tion which can lead to dam­age in the blood cells.

A 2024 Nature Med­i­cine study found that con­sum­ing niacin can dou­ble the risk of devel­op­ing car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases.

The researchers found that the sup­ple­ment can form plaque in arter­ies, which can con­tribute to dam­age in the blood ves­sels and inter­rupt blood flow.

Accord­ing to experts, the rec­om­mend­ed amount of niacin is 14–18 mg/day for adults and a dose between 2,000 and 6,000 mil­ligrams of niacin a day can cause seri­ous dam­age to the heart.

Addi­tion­al­ly, Dr Levine also told the web­site: ‘High dos­es of vit­a­min B3 can lead to liv­er tox­i­c­i­ty and hepati­tis which can cause var­i­ous health issues (includ­ing liv­er fail­ure).

Green tea extract

Like green tea, green tea extract is a great source of antiox­i­dants that can pro­mote heart, liv­er and brain health, improve the skin and reduce the risk of can­cer.

Accord­ing to experts, a sin­gle cap­sule of the extract con­tains the same amount of active ingre­di­ents as an aver­age cup of green tea.

How­ev­er, Dr Levine warns against con­sum­ing green tea extract in excess as it can be tox­ic for liv­er health.

He not­ed: ‘While green tea itself is safe, espe­cial­ly when con­sumed as a bev­er­age but green tea extract, espe­cial­ly in high dos­es, can pose a risk to liv­er health.

‘The liv­er injury is often hepa­to­cel­lu­lar, anti it affects liv­er cells direct­ly, and can range from mild ele­va­tions in liv­er enzymes to severe cas­es requir­ing liv­er trans­plan­ta­tion.’

Pre­vi­ous research has shown the exces­sive amounts of green tea antiox­i­dants, par­tic­u­lar­ly EGCG, can sat­u­rate and over­whelm the liv­er — lead­ing to dam­age and dis­ease.

While dam­age is not com­mon­ly seen in healthy peo­ple, those with ane­mia, bleed­ing dis­or­ders, heart con­di­tions, dia­betes, glau­co­ma and pre­vi­ous liv­er prob­lems are at the high­est

The Euro­pean Food Safe­ty Author­i­ty (EFSA) sug­gests that dos­es at or above 800mg per day of green tea extract can be dan­ger­ous espe­cial­ly for peo­ple who are already tak­ing blood thin­ners or oth­er such med­ica­tions for heart con­di­tions.

Erythritol and Xylitol

Pop­u­lar­ly used as zero calo­rie sweet­en­ers, ery­thri­tol is often found in prod­ucts like keto-friend­ly snacks and sug­ar-free gum while xyl­i­tol is com­mon­ly used in chew­ing gum, mouth­wash and tooth­paste.

Both sweet­en­ers have also long been approved for use by the FDA as addi­tives and are known to be help con­trol sug­ar lev­els in dia­bet­ic patients, as well as improve oral health. 

How­ev­er, these addi­tives, both of which can also nat­u­ral­ly be found in plants and fruits, can also increase the risk of heart attacks and blood clots. 

Dr Levine warned: ‘Ery­thri­tol and xyl­i­tol, com­mon sug­ar sub­sti­tut­ed, can increase platelet aggre­ga­tion in the body — poten­tial­ly rais­ing the risk of blood clots and car­dio­vas­cu­lar events.’

Addi­tion­al­ly, a 2024 Cleve­land Clin­ic study found that eat­ing xyl­i­tol can increase the risk of devel­op­ing blood clots and sub­se­quent heart attacks with­in three years since start­ing con­sump­tion. 

Fur­ther­more, anoth­er 2023 Cleve­land Clin­ic study also found that peo­ple with high ery­thri­tol con­sump­tion were about twice as like­ly to have car­dio­vas­cu­lar events over three years of fol­low-up. 

4. Gel sup­ple­ments

Some sup­ple­ments come in gel cap­sules, usu­al­ly made of phtha­lates.

At times called plas­ti­ciz­ers, phtha­lates make plas­tics soft, flex­i­ble and more durable, allow­ing them to be mold­ed into dif­fer­ent shapes and with­stand a vari­ety of con­di­tions.

Research shows once in the body, the chem­i­cal com­pound irri­tate the arter­ies and caus­es inflam­ma­tion which makes it hard for blood to flow to and from the heart.

In med­i­cine, they are often used in soft gel cap­sules, a type of oral pill in which the active drug is encased in a soft, gelati­nous shell.

Dr Levine is urg­ing peo­ple to lim­it the amount of soft gel cap­sules they take. They are com­mon­ly used for pain reliev­ers, mul­ti­vi­t­a­mins, stool soft­en­ers and cough and cold med­ica­tions.

A 2021 Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­lu­tion study found phtha­late expo­sure was asso­ci­at­ed with a slight­ly high­er risk of dying from car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease.

Accord­ing to Dr Levine, expo­sure to phtha­lates — espe­cial­ly through pills — can cause swelling and irri­ta­tion in the walls of the arter­ies that sup­ply blood to the heart, which can lead them to nar­row or hard­en, poten­tial­ly caus­ing block­ages or aneurysms — bal­loon­ing in the wall of a blood ves­sel.

It is usu­al­ly caused by the buildup of cho­les­terol and oth­er sub­stances, form­ing plaques, along the artery walls, but exces­sive intake of phtha­lates can also lead to this inflam­ma­tion.

Experts claim the chem­i­cals also cause oxida­tive stress, a type of cell and tis­sue dam­age caused by an imbal­ance of mol­e­cules in the body.

This can lead to dam­age in the heart cells, which can impair their func­tion and con­tribute to inflam­ma­tion, as well hard­en artery walls — increas­ing the risk for a heart attack.

Addi­tion­al­ly, phtha­lates can neg­a­tive­ly impact cho­les­terol lev­els and poten­tial­ly increase lev­els of triglyc­erides — a type of fat known to cause heart attacks — and low-den­si­ty lipopro­teins in the organ — mak­ing a per­son more sus­cep­ti­ble to strokes and heart dis­ease.

5. Overuse of Plant-Based Supplements

While often mar­ket­ed as nat­ur­al, some herbal and plant-based prod­ucts can still cause oxida­tive stress and liv­er strain, par­tic­u­lar­ly when com­bined with pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tions or tak­en in high dos­es.

Dr. Levine advis­es con­sult­ing a doc­tor before using any sup­ple­ment long-term.