AJCN North Carolina Research Campus
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Purchase Article
Right arrow View Shopping Cart
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by van Breemen, R. B
Right arrow Articles by Farnsworth, N. R
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by van Breemen, R. B
Right arrow Articles by Farnsworth, N. R
Agricola
Right arrow Articles by van Breemen, R. B
Right arrow Articles by Farnsworth, N. R
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 87, No. 2, 509S-513S, February 2008
© 2008 American Society for Nutrition

The Science of Botanical Supplements for Human Health: A View from the NIH Botanical Research Centers

Ensuring the safety of botanical dietary supplements1,2,3,4

Richard B van Breemen, Harry HS Fong and Norman R Farnsworth

1 From the University of Illinois at Chicago/National Institutes of Health Center for Botanical Dietary Supplements Research, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL

ABSTRACT

Botanical dietary supplements with a history of safe human use may not require the same level of toxicity testing as synthetic pharmaceutical drugs. Most of the documented examples of acute toxicity caused by botanical dietary supplements have been caused by the substitution of toxic plants for the desired species, probably through misidentification or production errors, or by contamination with pharmaceutical agents, either as a result of poor manufacturing practices or adulteration. Although more difficult to document, chronic toxicities attributed to botanical dietary supplements may be caused by contamination by heavy metals, pesticides, or microbes or by inherent properties of constituents of the botanicals themselves. Like drug-drug interactions, botanical-drug interactions can also be a source of toxicity. Most of these toxicity problems may be prevented by implementing good agricultural practices and good manufacturing practices and applying existing toxicity testing similar to those used in drug development or new toxicity assays under development based on proteomics, genomics, or metabolomics.

Key Words: Safety • toxicity • botanical dietary supplements • complementary and alternative medicine • hepatoxicity • metabolic activation






HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright © 2008 by The American Society for Nutrition