Ayurvedic Medicines Contain Dangerous levels of Toxic Metals

Ayurvedic medicines, a form of traditional medicine and health philosophy that relies mainly on herbal products, contain unacceptable levels of toxic metals, researchers warn in a report released Tuesday.

The plant-based products used in India for thousands of years to promote health actually contain levels of lead, mercury and arsenic which exceed "acceptable standards," they suggest.

A new study by a team of researchers from Boston University has found that one-fifth of traditional Ayurvedic medicines manufactured in the United States and India and sold via the Internet may contain dangerously high levels of lead, mercury or arsenic.

Ayurvedic medicine is a system of healing that originated in the early civilizations of India some 3,000-5,000 years ago. Today, Ayurvedic medicine is used by 80% of the population in India, and has become an increasingly accepted alternative medical treatment in America during the last two decades.

But lead researcher Robert B. Saper, M.D., M.P.H., of Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center recommends the medicines, often mixes of herbs and supplements, need to be strictly regulated. He said, "Since 1978 more than 80 cases of lead poisoning associated with Ayurvedic medicine use have been reported worldwide."

The study, published in the August 27 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), analyzed 193 randomly selected Ayurvedic medicine products bought online to determine the prevalence of Ayurvedic medicines available via the Internet containing detectable lead, mercury, or arsenic.

Herbal-only and Rasa Shastra are two major types of Ayurvedic medicines. In the latter form of herbal therapy metals like mercury, lead, iron and zinc, minerals like mica and gems, like pearl are deliberately combined with herbs to produce a therapeutic effect.

Saper and colleagues used five different Internet search engines to locate the sites selling Ayurvedic medicines, and identified 25 websites selling 673 Ayurvedic medicines.

The researchers obtained 193 products made by 37 different manufacturers in both India and the US, and sent their purchases to the New England Regional Environmental Protection Agency for testing. The agency analyzed the products using a technique called X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, which excites atoms to produce an identifiable radiationdefine "signature".

After measuring the metal concentrations using the aforementioned technique, the agency found that 20.7 percent of the products contained lead, mercury, and/or arsenic. The prevalence of metals in Ayurvedic medicines manufactured in the United States was 21.7 percent, compared with 19.5 percent in Indian-made products.

Rasa Shastra medicines were more than twice as likely as herbal-only medicines to contain detectable metals (40.5 percent vs 17.1 percent), and had higher levels of lead and mercury.

Saper and his team of researchers recommend that Ayurvedic medicine users avoid rasa shastra medicines. "Several Indian-manufactured rasa shastra medicines could result in lead and/or mercury ingestions 100 to 10,000 times greater than acceptable limits," they warned.