The use of Ayurvedic medication started in India several thousand years ago. Ayurvedic medicines are very popular and are sold as alternate medicines in ethnic markets and health food stores in the United States. Traditional Ayurvedic practitioners usually formulate their own medicines and several companies also manufacture and sell such formulations; typically plant and mineral based. Several literatures have reported cases of adverse health effects due to the toxic metal poisoning such as lead, mercury and arsenic.  The diagnosis is primarily lead poisoning, frequently discovered through symptoms of anemia.Bioavailability is the extent of an element absorbed from a medium such as food, medication or soil. This in-vitro method was used to mimic the digestion process of the human stomach to find out the amount of toxic metal exposure by extraction with glycine and hydrochloric acid at pH 1.5 �0.5 at 37�C. Conversely, total metal content was determined by using concentrated nitric acid in closed vessel microwave digestion.In this study we analyzed and presented the comparison of seven toxic metal levels; arsenic, cadmium, chromium, manganese, mercury, lead and selenium. Bioavailability and total metal content was measured using Thermo Fisher ICP-OES 6300 dual view spectrometer in nine Ayurvedic medication samples collected in California.

Bioavailability of toxic elements in Ayurvedic medications

248th National Meeting (2014)

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