I hate being "that" guy, but you should read up on any products before you decide to use them. The products are quite expensive and the efficacy of the products are not necessarily backed up by proper clinical trials. If you want to use them for an actual medical condition you should definitely see a doctor as well.
Don't trust healthcare consultants either. You wouldn't ask an insurance salesman if you need insurance, would you?
The main gripe people have with these types of products is that there is a regulatory gap of sorts in SA. Many products in SA are not regulated by the Medicines Control Council because they do not contain a scheduled substance and fall under the alternative medicine category. At the same time, these companies are not jumping at the opportunity to put their products through the rigours of independently monitored clinical trials because they know their products probably won't meet the efficacy criteria required to be classified as pharmaceuticals. Instead, they rely on buzz-words and marketing to lend legitimacy to their products. Some even go so far as associating actual medical doctors with their products, by either having doctors recommend the product or having doctors or pharmacists develop the product. This is all a marketing strategy.
Pharmaceutical scientist work in teams of dozens of people and they normally take years to develop a pharmaceurical product. The number of hoops they have to jump through to prove that the productive is effective and relatively safe are numerous and they have to prove that the product is more effective than the placebo's and as effective as current established products.
These alternative medicine companies often tout their products as being clinically tested, but these results are basically "in-house" studies conducted by people who have a vested interest in the product making money. Ironically, the less effective the product the better. Actual pharmaceuticals always have side-effects and people dying or getting seriously ill from a company's product is a law-suit waiting to happen. If a product doesn't really work that well then there is no real risk; some of these companies pretty much bank on the placebo effect.
The field of alternative medicine is rife with mumbo-jumbo and pseudoscience, so do some research before you commit to using any of these products.
As a bit of anecdotal evidence, a while back I took 10 times the recommended dosage of an "anti-anxiety" herbal medication to prove a point. Nothing happened. No drowsiness, nada. If you did this with a proper pharmaceutical product such as Xanax you'd be in big trouble. If there is no real effect of taking what should amount to an overdose, then you really have to question the effect that a smaller dose will have.
I highly recommend you read up on alternative health products before you use them.
