The DNA-Based Authentication of Commercial Herbal Products Reveals Their Globally Widespread Adulteration
Abstract
The herbal products, sold worldwide as medicines or foods, are perceived as low risk because they are considered natural and thus safe. The quality of these products is ineffectively regulated and controlled. The growing evidence for their lack of authenticity is causing deep concern, but the scale of this phenomenon at the global, continental or national scale remains unknown. We analyzed data reporting the authenticity, as detected with DNA-based methods, of 5,957 commercial herbal products sold in 37 countries, distributed in all six inhabited continents. Our global survey shows that a substantial proportion (27%) of the herbal products commercialized in the global marketplace is adulterated when their content was tested against their labeled, claimed ingredient species. The adulterated herbal products are distributed across all continents and regions. The proportion of adulterated products varies significantly among continents, being highest in Australia (79%), South America (67%), lower in Europe (47%), North America (33%), Africa (27%) and the lowest in Asia (23%). The commercial HPs' authenticity among the 37 countries included in our global analysis ranges between 0 and 100% from the total number of product reported for each specific national marketplace. For 9 countries, more than 100 products were successfully DNA-based authenticated and reported. From these countries, the highest percentage of adulterated commercial HPs was reported for Brazil (68%), followed…
Read the paper
Related studies
- Understanding the factors influencing fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda J.E. Smith) damage in African smallholder maize fields and quantifying its impact on yield. A case study in Eastern Zimbabwe
- Alarming situation of emerging H5 and H7 avian influenza and effective control strategies
- Livestock and food security: vulnerability to population growth and climate change
- Atmosphere–ocean oxygen and productivity dynamics during early animal radiations
- Characterization of the global distribution and diversified plasmid reservoirs of the colistin resistance gene mcr-9
- The global seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii in pigs: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.