Adulteration of Ingredients in Botanical Dietary Supplements: A Challenge for Healthcare Practitioners, Patients and Consumers, and Industry
Mark Blumenthal
Format: Video of Slides

Consumer and practitioner use of herbs and other botanically-derived dietary ingredients continues to increase in the United States and other industrialized nations. The increased consumer and professional acceptance of these natural products requires that they be more aware of quality problems associated with the identity and authenticity of some of these popular ingredients. Of particular interest is compelling evidence confirming that some of the most popular herbs are subject to adulteration in which the raw herbal material is either substituted with another lower-cost herb, or may be mixed with a lower-cost material, or where an extract is modified in such a way as to cheapen its cost, thereby lowering or sometimes even negating the expected physiological benefit. Of course, this adulteration is not expressed on the product label, so consumers and healthcare practitioners are unaware of this problem. This phenomenon is global in nature, as the trade in botanical materials is international. Although there are numerous ethical and responsible suppliers of reliably-produced and clinically effective raw materials and botanical extracts, there appears to be what may be a growing problem with respect to accidental and intentionally adulterated materials.

A consortium of nonprofit organizations, the ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Program, has confirmed the adulteration of numerous popular botanicals in the world market and is publishing a series of extensive, peer-reviewed articles in HerbalGram, the peer-reviewed journal of the nonprofit American Botanical Council (www.herbalgram.org). As of July 2013, the Program has published articles on the confirmed adulteration of bilberry, black cohosh, grapefruit seed extract, and skullcap, and is preparing articles on the adulteration of Asian ginseng root extract, ginkgo extract, saw palmetto, and numerous others. This session will focus on the herbs which are confirmed as sometimes adulterated, either by accident, or intentionally due to economic motivation by the sellers.