Adusei-Mensah Frank, Essumang David Kofi, Agjei Richard Osei, Kauhanen Jussi, Tikkanen-Kaukanen Carina, Ekor Martins
1School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland.
2School of Public Health, Texila American University, Georgetown, Guyana.
J Environ Health Sci Eng. 2019 Apr 15;17(2):609-618. doi: 10.1007/s40201-019-00373-y. eCollection 2019 Dec.
To address the question of whether users of herbal products (HPs) are exposed to harmful contaminants, we evaluated six HPs mostly patronized in Kumasi for heavy metal contamination and assessed the health risk associated with their use. This study is one of the first safety evaluation studies on finished multiherbal products in the region.
Three antimalarial, two antidiabetic and one antihypertensive HPs were selected after a mini-survey and coded randomly as HP A-F. The HPs were acid digested for quantitative analysis of heavy metals using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer. Hg quantification was carried out using cold vapour atomic absorption spectroscopy.
The cancer risk estimation values for the carcinogenic metals ranged between 1.54 × 10 to 3.73 × 10 and were all within acceptable limits. The non-cancer health risk evaluation revealed that, some of the products pose health risk to consumers. The estimated daily intake (EDI) for As in HPF was 2.48 × 10 mg/kg/day compared to the reference limit of 1.67 × 10 mg/kg/day. HPF also had high hazard index (HI) of 5.70 (HI >1) in children as compared to 1.68 (HI >1) in adults showing a 3.4 folds increase in the health risk among the former.
The six polyherbal products exhibited carcinogenic risk within acceptable limits. Although, the non-carcinogenic risk assessment of products HPA to HPE suggests safety, this can only be ascertained after further characterization of their health risks in detailed chronic toxicity studies. The high HI for product HPF suggests health risk for consumers of this product.
为了探讨草药产品（HPs）使用者是否会接触到有害污染物，我们评估了库马西地区最常光顾的六种草药产品的重金属污染情况，并评估了使用这些产品所带来的健康风险。本研究是该地区对成品多草药产品进行的首批安全性评估研究之一。
经过小型调查后，选择了三种抗疟疾、两种抗糖尿病和一种抗高血压的草药产品，并随机编码为HP A - F。对这些草药产品进行酸消解，使用电感耦合等离子体质谱仪对重金属进行定量分析。汞的定量分析采用冷蒸气原子吸收光谱法。
致癌金属的癌症风险估计值在1.54×10至3.73×10之间，均在可接受范围内。非癌症健康风险评估显示，部分产品对消费者构成健康风险。HPF中砷的估计每日摄入量（EDI）为2.48×10毫克/千克/天，而参考限值为1.67×10毫克/千克/天。与成人的1.68（HI >1）相比，HPF在儿童中的危害指数（HI）高达5.70（HI >1），表明前者的健康风险增加了3.4倍。
这六种多草药产品的致癌风险在可接受范围内。虽然对产品HPA至HPE的非致癌风险评估表明是安全的，但这只有在详细的慢性毒性研究中进一步确定其健康风险后才能确定。产品HPF的高HI表明该产品的消费者存在健康风险。
