Phyllanthus bahiensisFLICKR, ALEX POPOVKINNaturally, consumers reaching for herbal remedies may think they are doing their bodies a favor. But a new DNA barcoding study has shown that some of these so-called “natural” products are contaminated, containing substitute ingredients and fillers that are anything but. The results were published in BMC Medicine last month (October 11).
Researchers from the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario at the University of Guelph tested 44 herbal products produced by 12 manufacturers and sold in the U.S. and Canada. They found that 59 percent of those products contained DNA barcodes from plant species not listed on their labels, and a third of the products contained undeclared contaminants and/or fillers. In their paper, the researchers noted that substituting ingredients and adding filers can dilute the otherwise helpful activities of certain plant species.
“The level of regulation of herbal products is not good enough,” Graham Lord, director of the U.K.’s National Institute for Health Research Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre, told New Scientist. “It’s an intelligent idea that the authors suggest to use DNA barcoding to determine purity and really ...
