Determination of Heavy Metals
Contamination by toxic metals can either be accidental or intentional. Contamina-
tion by heavy metals such as mercury, lead, copper, cadmium, and arsenic in her-
bal remedies can be attributed to many causes, including environmental pollution,
and can pose clinically relevant dangers for the health of the user and should there-
fore be limited [42, 60–62]. The potential intake of the toxic metal can be estimated
on the basis of the level of its presence in the product and the recommended or es-
timated dosage of the product. This potential exposure can then be put into a toxi-
cological perspective by comparison with the so-called Provisional Tolerable Week-
ly Intake values (PTWI) for toxic metals, which have been established by the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the World Health Organization (FAO-WHO) [14,
A simple, straightforward determination of heavy metals can be found in many
pharmacopeias and is based on color reactions with special reagents such as thioa-
cetamide or diethyldithiocarbamate, and the amount present is estimated by com-
parison with a standard [41]. Instrumental analyses have to be employed when the
metals are present in trace quantities, in admixture, or when the analyses have to
be quantitative. The main methods commonly used are atomic absorption spectro-
photometry (AAS), inductively coupled plasma (ICP) and neutron activation analy-
sis (NAA) [
Contamination by toxic metals can either be accidental or intentional. Contamina-
tion by heavy metals such as mercury, lead, copper, cadmium, and arsenic in her-
bal remedies can be attributed to many causes, including environmental pollution,
and can pose clinically relevant dangers for the health of the user and should there-
fore be limited [42, 60–62]. The potential intake of the toxic metal can be estimated
on the basis of the level of its presence in the product and the recommended or es-
timated dosage of the product. This potential exposure can then be put into a toxi-
cological perspective by comparison with the so-called Provisional Tolerable Week-
ly Intake values (PTWI) for toxic metals, which have been established by the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the World Health Organization (FAO-WHO) [14,
A simple, straightforward determination of heavy metals can be found in many
pharmacopeias and is based on color reactions with special reagents such as thioa-
cetamide or diethyldithiocarbamate, and the amount present is estimated by com-
parison with a standard [41]. Instrumental analyses have to be employed when the
metals are present in trace quantities, in admixture, or when the analyses have to
be quantitative. The main methods commonly used are atomic absorption spectro-
photometry (AAS), inductively coupled plasma (ICP) and neutron activation analy-
sis (NAA) [
Post a Comment