Dietary Supplements and Food Safety

Cajanus is the name of the quarterly journal

published by the Caribbean Food and Nutri-

tion Institute, and it is known as a highly

reputable journal. In the issue Number 2,

Volume 42, 2009, there is an article, on “Food

safety – Dietary Supplements”, written on

pages 70 to 94, by Audrey Morris and Pear-

litta Lumsden. On page 52, according to the

Editor, this Cajanus issue “defines a dietary

supplement, looks at some testing and label-

ing aspects, and importantly, lists some popu-

lar products which are known to be harmful.”

It is a fact that herbal medicinal products,

vitamins and other specified items have been

regulated as dietary supplements in the

U.S.A., under the Dietary Supplements Health

and Education Act (DSHEA), since 1994; and

they are marketed as raw plant material and in

various other forms.

In the Cajanus article, the authors noted that

“in the Caribbean there is no legal or regula-

tory definition for standardized dietary sup-

plements”.

The authors offered much useful advice for

the consumer, especially because herbal prod-

ucts and other dietary supplements “are

mostly self-prescribed with little or no input

from informed health care providers... Many

herbal and other natural supplements have

powerful pharmacological effects that can

cause dangerous interactions with prescribed

or over-the-counter (OTC) medicines... Some

dietary supplements have real benefits and

some are unproven, while others have been

scientifically proven to be unsafe to human

health.”

While there is evidence concerning the safety

assessment of vitamin and mineral supple-

ments, information on herbal products re-

mains less available in the scientific litera-

ture.

Most of the statistical information dis-

played in this Cajanus article was sourced

from the situation with respect to dietary

supplements in the U.S.A., and some use-

ful data was given in the Tables provided,

such as:

“Table 2: Reported interactions of Vita-

mins and Minerals with Drugs;

Table 3: Reported Herb-Drug Interac-

tions;

Table 6: Some Dietary Supplements with

Adverse Effects/Associated Illnesses;

and Table 7: Some Dietary Supplements

with Insufficient Evidence to Support

Claims”.

A few errors and omissions remained

inside the Tables 6 and 7 and elsewhere;

and the few herbs included are more often

found growing in temperate countries

rather than in the Caribbean region. The

use of a common name alone, such as

Dandelion, would not determine which of

the following species might be involved,

namely Cassia ligustrina, Cassia occi-

dentalis, Cassia tora, Chaptalia nutans, and

Taraxacum officinale which grow in Carib-

bean countries.

Overall, this review article in Cajanus is rec-

ommended as a very useful and timely report

in the multidisciplinary subject area of food

safety and dietary supplements.

Inside this issue:

March, 2011 Volume 3, Issue:1

C A R I B B E A N H E R B A L M E D I C I N E R E S E A R C H I N S T I T U T E

CaHMRI News

DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS AND FOOD SAFETY

1

THE IDENTIFICATION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS

2

HARMFUL HERBS 3

mon names)

Botanical description

Parts used in commerce

identification.

The illustrations are with black and white line

drawings; and Heinrich emphasized that the

book was well-written, and could serve as an

excellent teaching tool in professions like

pharmacy and biology. He recommended the

book as a means “to convince policy makers

and the public in general about the essential

role of quality control in health sciences”.

The identification of medicinal plants

Michael Heinrich’s review was published on

this topic in 2007, on page 440 in Volume 111

of the Journal of Ethnopharmacology. It was

about the 2006 book by Wendy Applequist

carrying the title “The Identification of Me-

dicinal Plants. A Handbook of the Mor-

phology of Botanicals in Commerce”.

In his review Heinrich’s words were:

“For the non-expert a book with a title

focusing on identification of medicinal

plants may sound like one of the most

boring topics. However we are all very

conscious that poor quality in general

and the misidentification of material

used in the preparation of herbal medici-

nal products may well be one of the core

problems in the field of phytotherapy

and ethnopharmacy.”

“Phytotherapy” is the study of the use of

plant extracts in the treatment of illness.

When critically conducted, modern phy-

totherapy can be considered the scien-

tific study on the effects and clinical use

of herbal medicines.

“Ethnopharmacy” is the interdisciplinary sci-

ence that investigates the perception and use of

pharmaceuticals (especially traditional medi-

cines, but not only) within a given human soci-

ety. Ethnopharmacy includes medical anthro-

pology or ethnomedicine.

Wendy Applequitst’s book is one of the essen-

tial “tools that help to identify the starting ma-

terial” for the botanical medicines in interna-

tional trade. Therefore it contributes crucially

to the processes of quality control required in

the production of herbal drugs.

Heinrich reported that in this book, more than

one hundred and fifty different medicinal

plants commonly used in the herbal businesses

in North America are described. Each mono-

graph in the book covers topics, such as

Botanical details (including Latin bino-

mial, standardized common name, other com-

The identification of medicinal plants

Page 2

CaHMRI News

...IT CONTRIBUTES

CRUCIALLY TO THE

PROCESSES OF

QUALITY CONTROL

REQUIRED IN THE

PRODUCTION OF

HERBAL DRUGS.

Both the increasing awareness and consump-

tion of poorly regulated herbal medicinal

products today must be the reason for the

paper in Cajanus which is discussed above in

the current issue of this newsletter.

Because herbal medicinal products are made

from plants, it is important to know that some

plants are quite poisonous. There is good

supporting scientific evidence for this fact.

One example is the “AMA Handbook of

Poisonous and Injurious Plants” by K. F.

Lampe and M. McCann, which was published

in 1985 by the American Medical Associa-

tion. A number of plants used as medicinal

agents in North America and the Caribbean

are found in this handbook. What has been

described as its successor is the “Handbook of

Poisonous and Injurious Plants” by L.S. Nel-

son, R.D. Shih and M. Balick, which was

produced under the supervision of the New

York Botanical Garden and published in 2006

by Springer. These two handbooks are non-

alarmist reliable guides to an appreciation of

plants around us, many of which are safe,

though some are harmful. It is wise to recall

the saying in toxicology that “the dose makes

the poison”.

The use of common names alone for a plant

can lead to misidentification, which can lead

to toxicity arising in the preparation and for-

mulation of a herbal medicinal product. Con-

sider the situation with two Caribbean herbs

which are found in the “Atlas of medicinal

plants of Middle America - Bahamas to Yucatan”, which was written by J.F. Morton

(1981.C. Thomas, U.S.A.).

On pages 796 and 797 in Morton’s book, the

plant Nicotiana tabacum is described with

several common names, including Cutz, Ta-

bak, Tobacco and Yapo. According to the

folk traditional usage, “In Cuba and Vene-

zuela, fresh leaves are bound on the forehead

to relieve headache.” “In Trinidad, poultices

of the dried leaves are resorted to in toothache

and postpartum pain”. “In Curacao, the head

is washed with an extract of chewing tobacco

to get rid of lice”.

Scientific evaluation will show that its con-

stituents of nicotine and other alkaloids are

responsible for making Nicotiana ta-

bacum a toxic plant.

The second example concerns the tradi-

tional usage of Lantana camara. This

herb is described, on pages 739 to 742 in

Morton’s book, as having several com-

mon names such as Alantana, Black Sage,

Cariaquito, Red Sage and Wild Sage. In

Tobago this aromatic herb is known as

Graterwood. According to the folk usage

“In Jamaica and Trinidad, the plant or

flower decoction (after boiling in water) is a

remedy for colds and fever”. “In Costa Rica it

is used as a tonic and remedy for hyperten-

sion.”

In the scientific literature, Lantana camara is

described as a noxious weed that grows in

many tropical and subtropical parts of the

world. It has been much studied because in-

gestion of the foliage causes liver damage.

The plant is discussed in ”A Review of the

Hepatotoxic Plant Lantana camara” by O.P.

Sharma and colleagues, appearing on pages

313 to 352 in the issue 4 of Volume 37 of the

journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology. In

part, the review states that both ruminants and

nonruminant animals such as guinea pigs and

rabbits are susceptible to the hepatotoxic ac-

tion of lantana toxins. The hepatotoxins are

pentacyclic triterpenoids called lantadenes.

Green unripe fruits of the plant are toxic to

humans. “Management of lantana toxicosis in

animals is achieved by drenching with acti-

vated charcoal and supportive therapy”. This

clearly is a harmful herb. Again, “the dose

makes the poison”.

Harmful herbs

Page 3

Volume 3, Issue:1

THE USE OF COMMON

NAMES ALONE FOR A

PLANT CAN LEAD TO

MISIDENTIFICATION,

WHICH CAN LEAD TO

TOXICITY ...

FUTURE ISSUES will include:

*Antioxidants again?

* Legendary herbal aphrodisiacs

* Cocoa products

* “The Herbal Drug Industry” (a book

review)

To send us your comments

about this newsletter,

please contact;- The Herbal Institute at UTT at Tel: 1 (868) 673 0029 / 673 2654 compton.seaforth@utt.edu.tt or jennifer.paul@utt.edu.tt

Nicotiana tobacum

http://factoidz.com/common-

poisonous-plants/