Dear Reader
The Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program (BAPP) has
released its first publication in 2019, a bulletin on adulteration of
ashwagandha roots, and root extracts. Despite its long history of use in
Ayurvedic medicine, the primary traditional medicine system in India, the
popularity of ashwagandha has increased only recently in the United States, now
being one of the top 10 best-selling herbs in natural food stores in this
country. Unfortunately, there have been reports of adulteration, primarily by replacing
ashwagandha root with undeclared ashwagandha leaf material. At the same time,
there are legitimate products on the market with both ashwagandha root and leaf
extracts, showing the importance of transparent and accurate labeling.
Ashwagandha leaf also contains withanolides, which are the steroidal lactones to
which many extracts are standardized and which are believed to be at least in
part responsible for the benefits of ashwagandha. The Botanical Adulterants
Prevention Bulletin on ashwagandha root, and root extracts provides a summary
on these issues.
For the first time, we have added a paragraph to this
newsletter to recognize the many peer-reviewers who help to improve our bulletins
and laboratory guidance documents. We are grateful to the many experts in the
United States and internationally who have been willing to read the draft
documents, and provide suggestions, edits, and sometimes even previously
unpublished images to render the BAPP documents more useful. More details about
the peer-review process and a list with all the peer-reviewers are given in the
Program News section.
Two papers (Kim et al. and Ham et al.) on the distinction
between Cynanchum wilfordii and Cynanchum auriculatum have been summarized and discussed at
the beginning of the Science
section. The problem of C. wilfordii
substitution with undeclared materials from C. auriculatum
has led to media headlines mainly in South Korea, where products made from C. wilfordii are very successful. The papers discussed
explore indel markers (genetic regions that vary among species due to insertion
or deletion of individual nucleotides, or nucleotide sequences) and terahertz
spectroscopy as approaches to discriminate between the two species.
Following the initial report of saw palmetto adulteration
with ingredients made from animal fats, Perini et al. provide a more
detailed publication on the composition of these animal-derived fatty acid
mixtures labeled as saw palmetto using ratios of stable carbon, hydrogen, and
oxygen isotopes. A summary of their findings and a discussion of the potential
of stable isotope analysis have been added to this Botanical
Adulterants Monitor.
Also reviewed is the work by Da et al. on refuting the
notion that 1,4-androstadiene-3,17-dione is a metabolite that occurs naturally
in Rhodiola rosea, which was achieved using
a combination of ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet
detection (UHPLC-UV), UHPLC coupled to quadrupole time-of-flight mass
spectrometry (QTOF-MS), and gas chromatography (GC) with MS detection.
The last two papers in this section detail the a near
infrared method developed by Shawky and Selim to distinguish cinnamon from
spent cinnamon and cassia, and an evaluation of commercial garcinia and kokum
fruit, and dietary supplements made from Garcinia spp.
by DNA barcoding and 1H NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance). The
authors of this latter paper, Seethapathy et al., reported that all of the Garcinia ingredients and products analyzed were authentic.
We hope that the information provided in this issue of
the Botanical Adulterants Monitor will be useful. Please
do not hesitate to share the contents of this newsletter with your colleagues.
We hope that the information will help to avoid adulterated ingredients finding
their way into the supply chain for herbal dietary supplements, natural
cosmetics, personal care and other finished botanical products.
Stefan Gafner, PhD
Chief Science Officer
American Botanical Council
Technical Director, ABC-AHP-NCNPR
Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program
