There's a very good chance that some of the medicine in your home contains an animal-derived ingredient.
The most frequently included animal-based ingredients in meds, according to a new study in the British Medical Journal, are lactose (often extracted from curdled cow’s milk), gelatin (frequently sourced from cows) and magnesium stearate, which can also come from a cow and is a magnesium salt containing stearic acid.
A PETA fact sheet mentions that stearic acid additionally can come from dogs and cats euthanized in animal shelters.
“Lactose, the most common ingredient we found in medications, was largely made using the lining of young cow stomachs as part of the manufacturing process,” BMJ study co-author Kinesh Patel told Discovery News. Patel is a research fellow at St. Mark’s Hospital’s Wolfson Unit for Endoscopy in the U.K.
http://news.discovery.com/animals/animals-in-your-medicine-cabinet-photos-140204.htm
The most frequently included animal-based ingredients in meds, according to a new study in the British Medical Journal, are lactose (often extracted from curdled cow’s milk), gelatin (frequently sourced from cows) and magnesium stearate, which can also come from a cow and is a magnesium salt containing stearic acid.
A PETA fact sheet mentions that stearic acid additionally can come from dogs and cats euthanized in animal shelters.
“Lactose, the most common ingredient we found in medications, was largely made using the lining of young cow stomachs as part of the manufacturing process,” BMJ study co-author Kinesh Patel told Discovery News. Patel is a research fellow at St. Mark’s Hospital’s Wolfson Unit for Endoscopy in the U.K.
http://news.discovery.com/animals/animals-in-your-medicine-cabinet-photos-140204.htm