Researchers from Boston and Bangalore, India ask, what’s the risk of getting lead, mercury, and arsenic in the Ayurvedic medicines purchased on the Internet?

First, the details.

• 25 Web sites selling traditional Ayurvedic herbs, formulas, or ingredients commonly used in Ayurveda medicines taken by mouth and were identified.
• 230 Ayurvedic medicines were randomly selected for purchase.
• Country of manufacturer/Web site supplier, rasa shastra status, and claims of Good Manufacturing Practices were recorded.
• Rasa shastra describes the use of metals, gems, minerals, and poisons to produce special formulations of medicines.

And, the results.

• 193 of the 230 requested medicines were received and analyzed.
• The prevalence of metal-containing products was 21%.
• In US-manufactured products it was 22% vs 20% in Indian products.
• Rasa shastra compared with non–rasa shastra medicines had a significantly greater prevalence of metals (41% vs 17%).
• Rasa shastra drugs also had significantly higher median concentrations of lead and mercury.
• All metal-containing products exceeded 1 or more standards for acceptable daily intake of toxic metals.

The bottom line?
The authors did the math and concluded, “One-fifth of both US-manufactured and Indian-manufactured Ayurvedic medicines purchased via the Internet contain detectable lead, mercury, or arsenic.”

Bostonians are all over this issue. The 20% incidence reported here is the same as reported earlier after purchasing Ayurvedic medicines from the surrounding community. An association between Ayurvedic medicines and lead poisoning is discussed here.

8/27/08 09:18 JR