It’s no coincidence that all manner of advertisements promising quick ways to lose weight and get fit proliferate this time of year. More than a few individuals devote their annual resolutions to physical self-improvement.

Who knows if the pills and powders are actually effective, but the come-ons definitely are: Americans spend $32 billion a year on dietary supplements. Also indisputable: Some of these diet aids are downright dangerous — generally outside the purview of the Food and Drug Administration until harm occurs and linked to rising health woes in Hawaii and across the U.S.

Dietary supplements account for 20 percent of drug-related liver ailments treated in U.S. hospitals, up from 7 percent a decade ago, according to the Drug-Induced Liver Injury Network. One of the most serious recent outbreaks was right here in Hawaii, which the state Department of Health continues to investigate.

The supplement OxyELITE PRO, which promised to burn fat and build muscle, was taken off Hawaii shelves in October and recalled nationwide a month later. The Health Department has identified 43 people in Hawaii who were taking that supplement or a version of it when they developed acute liver inflammation, or nonviral hepatitis. Two required liver transplants and a third patient died: a mother of seven who was trying to lose weight. The last person to fall ill was a man who started taking the supplement after the health alert was issued; he wrongly assumed that the stricken consumers had abused the pill.

Such assumptions are not uncommon, but the truth is that plenty of people who follow the package directions suffer complications through no fault of their own. As The recently reported, patients coping with liver damage include dozens of men sickened by body-building supplements tainted with steroids and women for whom herbal powders proved neither a weight-loss cure nor energy booster.

The FDA is generally powerless to intervene until harm occurs, a lethal gap created by federal deregulation in 1994 that is overdue for correction.

Under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, the manufacturer is responsible for ensuring that a product is safe before it hits the shelves. Even after serious problems occur, the FDA’s authority is limited. The agency must show that a supplement poses a "significant or unreasonable risk of illness or injury," as it did when it successfully pressured the maker of OxyELITE PRO to remove it from store shelves.

Because of this lack of oversight, the market is flooded with products that are adulterated, mislabeled or sold in dosages unverified as safe, the Times reported. Only about 30 percent of dietary supplement companies follow basic quality-control standards, and a minuscule 0.3 percent of the supplements on the U.S. market have been studied closely enough to determine their side effects, it said.

This is a minefield that well-intentioned consumers should not be left to navigate on their own. Congress must update the 1994 law to ensure that the FDA has the authority to impose safety standards on this multibillion-dollar, largely unregulated industry. Hawaii’s senators and representatives should lead the way on this, acknowledging the devastating impact in our state.

Absent such regulation, buyer beware. No New Year’s resolution is worth risking your life.