How some suppliers attempt to fool commonly used analytical methods

As the global market for herbal medicines and supplements has increased, so have reports of undisclosed ingredients being added to botanical raw materials, extracts, and finished consumer products. Often, adulteration is carried out for financial gain (economically motivated adulteration), where raw materials are intentionally substituted or diluted with undisclosed lower-quality ingredients. This represents a challenge to the global botanical medicine marketplace and, in some cases, impacts consumer safety. The American Botanical Council (ABC), the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia (AHP), and the National Center for Natural Product Research (NCNPR) at the University of Mississippi have initiated the ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Program, a program to educate members of the herbal and dietary supplement industry about ingredient and product adulteration.

The chemically complex nature of botanically-derived ingredients calls for unique quality control processes. Appropriate testing for identity and authenticity of botanical materials is a universal requirement in countries around the world. However, unscrupulous suppliers often take advantage of a lack of specificity in test methods used to confirm the identity of a botanical ingredient by providing materials that comply with these identity tests even if they do not correspond to the material declared on the label. Ingredients for which adulteration has been reported include, e.g., extracts of cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) fruit, ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) leaf, saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) fruit, St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) herb, and turmeric (Curcuma longa) root/rhizome. The presentation gives an overview on botanical ingredient adulteration with examples how fraudulent suppliers or manufacturers attempt to fool standard analytical testing.