Word: herbs
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...including his pregnant wife. But Dr. Joshua Perper, the medical examiner who autopsied Bechler, used the righthander's death to call for a crusade. After finding a weight-loss supplement in Bechler's stomach, Perper held a press conference and urged Major League Baseball to ban ephedra, a controversial herb found in the supplement that is similar to amphetamines. Even before the funeral, many in the baseball world--sports columnists, team physicians, franchise owners--were echoing Perper, asking the league to join the NFL and the Olympics in prohibiting ephedra. Members of Congress are talking about a national...
...conventional wisdom that hardens so quickly often needs to be reviewed in slo-mo. No one is sure whether ephedra killed Bechler. Toxicology studies that will show how the various chemicals in the herb behaved in his system won't be completed for two weeks. "The impact of ephedra on temperature is minimal and therefore could not have been a primary factor, in my view," says Richard Kreider, president of the American Society of Exercise Physiologists...
Many athletes swallow the herb to give them an energy boost; it increases blood pressure and heart rate. Bechler apparently wanted that boost because he had gained 10 lbs. and because he knew he needed to hustle to make the team. (In the three games he pitched last year, he gave up three homers.) Many major leaguers told reporters last week that they take ephedra to improve performance. "It's a good supplement if taken right," Bechler's teammate Jay Gibbons told the Baltimore...
...clinical trial that got a lot of publicity last year, the herb St.-John's-wort failed to work better than a placebo in treating severe depression. The study also showed that Zoloft, one of the most popular prescription antidepressants, did no better than a placebo either, but that result attracted little attention. In the real world, people do not take St.-John's-wort for severe depression--they use it for mild to moderate conditions. Zoloft, on the other hand, is considered a powerful weapon in the ongoing war on mental illness...
...DIED. HERB RITTS, 50, sweetly easygoing celebrity photographer whose ability to make famous subjects comfortable helped him capture and define the high-octane glamour and narcissism of the 1980s; of complications from pneumonia; in Los Angeles. A onetime furniture salesman who made his name with an impromptu late-1970s photo shoot of his not-yet-known friend Richard Gere, Ritts produced memorable photos of Elizabeth Taylor revealing her brain-surgery scar, Madonna grabbing her crotch, and singer k.d. lang, in drag, being shaved by Cindy Crawford...