TRACE ELEMENT AND HEAVY METAL ANALYSIS OF COMMERCIAL GINSENG AND HYPOXIS SUPPLEMENT PRODUCTS

Abstract

Natural products extensive use as a source of primary health care requires routine quality control scientific testing methodologies to verify the safety, quality and efficacy of commercially available plant products. This will enhance public confidence in the use of such products in an unregulated environment, as adverse side effects often associated with the use of traditional/ herbal products, are generally due to misidentification of plants, lack of standardization and good manufacturing practices, botanical substitution, adulteration, and contamination. The therapeutic effect of plant medicine is alleged to be enhanced by essential trace elements. Some products may however also contain excessive amounts of trace elements and heavy metals. For this study the focus was two specific groups of product. Ginseng as a popular traditional Chinese medicine, used for its adaptogenic and restorative properties, and African Potato products used as an immune booster for patients infected with HIV/AIDS. Different commercial brands of Ginseng and African Potato products were purchased from pharmacies and health stores in Cape Town for this study. The products were evaluated for content validity and contamination for the following trace element and heavy metals, sodium (Na), potassium (K), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca),Iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), chromium (Cr), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb) and mercury (Hg), Lithium (Li). The instrument utilized for the trace element and heavy metal analysis was the combination tandem system of Inductively Coupled Plasma - Mass Spectrometery (ICP-MS) that is a powerful, accurate, fast and sensitive, analytical technique