News Releases

Warning to people with diabetes about dangerous herbal medicine

July 3rd 2013

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) today warned people with diabetes not to believe false advertising claims that they can give up their prescribed diabetes medication if they take Vedagrin, an unlicensed herbal medicine.

The advertisement for Vedagrin (also known as Vendate) promotes the unlicensed medicine as an alternative to prescribed diabetes medication with the words "say goodbye to your diabetes medication forever". This breaks advertising regulations for medicines and the MHRA has instructed the company to stop selling the product.

Richard Woodfield, MHRA’s Head of Herbal Policy said: "People with diabetes should ignore these advertising claims and continue to take their prescribed medicine.

"While the patient information leaflet for this unlicensed medicine tells people to seek medical advice before stopping their insulin intake, the advertising claims for this product break advertising regulations for medicines. If these claims are followed they could have dangerous consequences for people with diabetes.

"It’s important that people buy herbal medicines that have either a PL (product licence) or THR (Traditional Herbal Registration) number on the bottom of the packaging. This means the medicines have been assessed against quality standards."