With more than 70% of plant material for dietary supplements grown outside the USA you need to know what questions to ask in regard to your dietary supplements.
Today we are going to give a brief overview of how ingredients need to be evaluated and use this information to learn about the dietary supplements you are using.
Under typical circumstances a dietary supplement company will purchase their raw ingredients (e.g. plant material) from a supplier.
The dietary supplement company will then manufacture their product using these ingredients.
Here are some questions you should ask about the dietary supplements you are looking to purchase:
Has the dietary supplement company validated the certificate of analysis?
A certificate of analysis is provided by the plant material supplier (e.g. company in Japan, China, India, etc.) to the dietary supplement company. It will contain information about the plant material such as the country of origin, how the plant was identified, phytochemicals founds in the plant (e.g. percent of flavonoids), heavy metal levels, testing results for different bacteria, etc. As someone buying a dietary supplement you want to make sure the dietary supplement manufacturer can confirm the results provided by the plant material supplier.
Has the dietary supplement company verified the plant?
This seems kind of basic, however, many plants are closely related and sometimes get replaced or substituted by similar sounding/related plants. For example, skullcap is available in two different forms: American skullcap and Chinese skullcap. A second example, ginseng is available in two different forms: American ginseng and Panax (Asian) ginseng. In both of these examples the phytochemicals can be different between the ‘American’ and ‘Asian’ forms.
Has the dietary supplement company evaluated the plant extract for specific phytochemicals?
On the supplement facts label it is not uncommon to have a botanical ingredient that says it is “standardized” to a specific phytochemical(s). For example, Ginkgbo biloba is standardized to 24% Ginkgo flavone glycosides. This would mean 100 mg of the extract would contain 24 mg of Ginkgo flavone glycosides. The question you need to ask is ‘Has the dietary supplement company repeated these tests to confirm that the extract does contain 24% Gingko flavone glycosides?’
Has the dietary supplement company tested the plant extract for heavy metals?
Plants through a natural process absorb nutrients from the soil including minerals (i.e. metals). Some soils around the world are naturally high in heavy metals (e.g. lead, mercury, cadmium) or have been contaminated by these heavy metals. If plants are grown in these types of soils the plant material will be higher in heavy metals.
Take away message: You need to ask some basic questions to know how to buy the best dietary supplements. A dietary supplement company will purchase their botanicals from a supplier (e.g. Ginkgo biloba from a company that grows it in Japan). When they make this purchase the company provides them what is known as a Certificate of Analysis. This document will include information such as the phytochemicals in the extract, results of pesticide testing, and results of heavy metals testing. As a consumer you want to make sure that the company has had the raw ingredients re-tested to confirm the results of the supplier.
His research on plant medicine has led to more than 45 publications and abstracts.This research has been presented at international meetings in the USA, France, Turkey, Peru, Israel, Austria, and Italy.
Categories: Dietary Supplements, Plant Medicine, Quality Control