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Toxic metals and organochlorine pesticides residue in single herbal drugs used in important ayurvedic formulation – ‘Dashmoola’

Abstract

Herbal formulations are getting popularity throughout the world and commercialized extensively for various medicinal properties. WHO has emphasized the need for quality assurance of herbal products, including testing of heavy metals and pesticides residues. ‘Dashmoola’, a popular herbal formulation, with immunomodulator and febrifugal properties, consists of ten single root drugs. In view of WHO guidelines, single herbal drugs used in ‘Dashmoola’, were collected from different places of India for testing heavy metals and persistent pesticides residue. Although use of roots in ‘Dashmoola’ is prescribed in original ayurvedic literature but now many pharmacies use stem in place of roots. Therefore, in the present study both roots and stems were selected for estimation of six heavy metals namely arsenic (As), mercury (Hg), lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr) and nickel (Ni). Apart from these, the organochlorine pesticides residue viz. different metabolites of DDT, DDE, isomers of HCH and α-endosulfan were checked in total 40 samples of single crude drugs. Heavy metals except Hg, were present in most of the samples. In few samples Pb and Cd concentration were beyond the WHO permissible limits. Although α-HCH and γ-HCH were present in almost all the samples, but other pesticides were not detected in these samples. DDT and DDE were found only in two samples.

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Correspondence to Vartika Rai or Shanta Mehrotra.

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Rai, V., Kakkar, P., Singh, J. et al. Toxic metals and organochlorine pesticides residue in single herbal drugs used in important ayurvedic formulation – ‘Dashmoola’. Environ Monit Assess 143, 273–277 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-007-9976-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-007-9976-8

Keywords

  • As
  • Compound formulation
  • Heavy metals
  • Hg
  • Organochlorine pesticides
  • Quality assurance