What is in your herbal medication. Lead? Arsenic? And what does your herbal really do?

The NY Times is a great paper.
They had an article recently on contaminants in herbal medications. As I have blogged about before, herbals ARE medications. The issue with herbals is when people hear “herbal” they think all is safe. Herbal anything sound like butterflies and sunshine with bright blue skies.

How could an HERBAL do anything bad?

Quick synopsis of the article:

• Herbals are not regulated
• Herbals have contaminants.  These include: Lead, Arsenic and other heavy metals, and pesticides (yay! you get more than you paid for.)
• Herbals claim to cure cancer, fix blood pressure, and other things, most without any science proving it.
• Research has shown 1 in 4 herbal companies have quality control issues.  The biggest issues are the supplements did not have the correct amount listed of the ingredient and the supplements were contaminated by heavy metals.
• Most plants are located in China and not inspected routinely by FDA

So, this goes back to my point of herbals are medications.  Unfortunately, due to good lobbyists in this $25 billion dollar business, there is no FDA evaluation of the herbal supplements.  Quality control, including accurate dosages and removal of contaminants, is not done.  They fall somehow under food perview, not drug.

I do think herbals can be beneficial.  So how do you know what is truly in your herbal? Contaminants? Dosage?  Which brand? I don’t know how to find the “good” brands with high quality control… I’ll have to research it for another blog.  Until then, here is the article from the NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/health/policy/26herbal.html?emc=eta1