Dear Reader,

 

The ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Program has been given the ‘Industry Leader’ award as part of the ‘Best of Industry 2016’ recognition by one of the leading trade publications in the United States, Nutritional Outlook, for its efforts to fight herbal ingredient adulteration. According to Jennifer Grebow, Nutritional Outlook’s editor-in-chief, the Program’s “positive effects are not only felt within the industry, but also where it matters most – consumer health and safety.” ¹ All of us who work for the Program are grateful to see our efforts recognized, but also to hear that what we do has a positive impact on the quality of herbal supplements on the market.

 

In other Program news, the Botanical Adulterants Bulletins on grapefruit seed extract, St. John’s wort, and saw palmetto were published in the first quarter of 2017. The grapefruit seed extract Bulletin, authored by John Cardellina, PhD, highlights the ongoing issue about the sale of synthetic antimicrobial compounds labeled as grapefruit seed extracts. Data on St John’s wort adulteration, mainly with extracts from other Hypericum species and undeclared food dyes, were compiled and summarized by Allison McCutcheon, PhD. The saw palmetto Bulletin, co-authored by Scott Baggett, PhD, and me, focuses mainly on the addition of, or substitution with, undeclared vegetable oils to extracts labeled to contain only saw palmetto. These Bulletins are extensively peer-reviewed by experts from academia, the botanical industry, and government entities.

 

Included in this edition of the “Botanical Adulterants Monitor” are two case reports on presence of tropane alkaloids in herbal teas. Such cases, likely due to accidental contamination during harvest, are generally rare, but are a reminder that precautionary measures should be taken to the extent possible to avoid accidental admixture of tropane alkaloid-containing plant material.

 

The “industry alert” section presents a summary of a report on the quality of Asian ginseng root extracts sold by European manufacturers, provided by Ryan Gorman from Network Nutrition/IMCD in Australia. Using the conditions for the quantitative analysis of ginsenosides in the United States Pharmacopeia, the report uses ginsenoside ratios to detect adulteration with American ginseng extracts, or with Asian ginseng leaf extracts. Of the 10 root samples analyzed by Network Nutrition, two were found to be adulterated with American ginseng root extracts, and two contained undeclared leaf and stem extract material. (This is an area of significant concern to our Program, as the recent cover story of HerbalGram #111 on the history of ginseng adulteration by Steven Foster attests; it will be followed up with another extensive article on ginseng adulteration in HerbalGram in the near future.)

 

The review of peer-reviewed scientific papers starts with two publications on adulteration of crude herbal drugs in India. In both papers, the extent of adulteration was examined using a DNA barcoding approach. While Shanmughanandhan et al. allege that up to 60% of the samples analyzed contain undeclared plant materials or fillers, some of these results may be explained by accidental contamination with small amounts of extraneous matter, acceptable use of excipients, or amplification bias. The paper by Stalin et al. found a lower adulteration rate with ca. 20% of the analyzed samples, all obtained from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, not containing the labeled species.

 

DNA barcoding was also the method of choice in two papers evaluating the authenticity of herbs used as spices in addition to herbal medicine. Swetha et al. evaluated the authenticity of commercial material labeled to contain mace (Myristica fragrans) sold in markets in India, and reported adulteration with Bombay nutmeg (M. malabarica). Doh et al. analyzed 160 commercial samples labeled to contain cassia (Cinnamomum cassia) sold in Chinese, Japanese and Korean markets. The authors used DNA barcoding to distinguish among the various commercial cinnamon species, and found that two of the samples (1.5%) did not contain cassia, but C. burmannii instead.

 

The last paper provides the results of a project among Canadian and United States research groups that set out to isolate the antimicrobial active constituents of a horseradish fermentation product that is widely used as a natural preservative in the cosmetic industry. But rather than the peptides that the manufacturer of the product claimed as active compounds, the research collaboration found that the antimicrobial activity was due to the presence of salicylic acid and didecyldimethylammonium bromide, both of non-natural origin, reminiscent of the sale of synthetic microbicides labeled as so-called “grapefruit seed extract”.

 

We hope you will find valuable information in this issue of the “Botanical Adulterants Monitor” and that you will pass this on to your colleagues with interest in ensuring that adulterated ingredients do not find their way into consumer products.

 

Stefan Gafner, PhD

Chief Science Officer

American Botanical Council

Technical Director, ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Program

 

Reference

1.     Grebow J. Nutritional Outlook’s Best of the Industry, Industry Leader: Botanical Adulterants Program. December 7, 2016. Nutritional Outlook. Available at: http://www.nutritionaloutlook.com/herbs-botanicals/nutritional-outlooks-2016-best-industry-industry-leader-botanical-adulterants-program. Accessed March 5, 2017.