A “substantial proportion” of Ayurvedic herbal “medicines” from India contain lead mercury and arsenic, according to research published this week in JAMA.
The team behind the work says the Food and Drug Administration should start putting the screws on the industry.
“Current regulations governing the quality of herbal supplements made and sold in the US and India are inadequate,” author Robert Saper told Reuters. “We recommend strictly enforced government-mandated daily dose limits for toxic metals in all dietary supplements.”
Saper’s team tested 193 Ayurvedic “medicines” purchased via the internet in 2005 and tested them for contamination. Just over 20% of products contained toxic metals.
This number is clearly not helped by the practice rasa shastra, where herbs are combined with metals and minerals. Of Rasa shastra “medicines” 41% contained metals, compared to 17% of non-rasa shastra “medicines”.
“All metal-containing products exceeded 1 or more standards for acceptable daily intake of toxic metals,” write the authors.
This isn’t the first time a JAMA paper has raised concerns about such ‘medicines’. In 2004 a paper from many of the same team found “One of five Ayurvedic HMPs produced in South Asia and available in Boston South Asian grocery stores contains potentially harmful levels of lead, mercury, and/or arsenic.”
According to the LA Times “Ayurvedic practitioners lashed out at the research as alarmist, saying that it only showed there were problems with mixtures from India, not with US-made products.” So there you have it: just make sure your unproven, potentially toxic, pseudo-scientific herbs are American.
Actually maybe not. The paper clearly states “The prevalence of metals in US-manufactured products was 21.7% (95% CI, 14.6%-30.4%) compared with 19.5% (95% CI, 11.3%-30.1%) in Indian products (P = .86).” IE: there was no significant difference.
“The raw material is all coming from India,” Kush Khanna, who runs a manufacturer of ayurvedic “medicines” in Berkeley told the Times all the raw material comes from India. However Khanna insists his products are safe by WHO limits (where lead levels can be far higher than California limits).