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Food safety
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Botanicals |
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The use of botanicals (including whole, fragmented or cut plants, plant parts, algae, fungi and lichens) in food supplements have increased in recent years.
The use of many of these botanicals seems harmless. However, the general belief that natural is synonymous with safe is not substantiated. There is an increasing number of reports of human cases of acute and subacute toxic effects e.g. on the liver (hepatotoxicity) or kidney (nephrotoxicity).
Many other kinds of toxic/adverse effects like genotoxicity, cancer, effects on fertility, on the hormone system, or effects on the central nervous system have been described with botanicals or preparations of these in laboratory experiments or in cases where animals have grazed fields where a botanical predominate. Acute effects like seizures or cauterization developing shortly after intake would likely be found. However, it is less likely that subacute or most unlikely that chronic effects in humans would be linked to the use of a food supplement or the botanical.
Apart from the fact that the botanical in itself may contain harmful substances and may cause toxic effects, cases of misidentification or substitution of innocuous botanicals with harmful ones, or addition of medicinal products has also been reported.
The National Food Institute has more than twenty years experience in toxicological evaluations/risk assessments of botanicals used in food supplements. The evaluations have been made public available (in Danish) with the publication of the so-called "Drogeliste" (a Danish list of plants, mushrooms or parts of these etc. that have been toxicologically evaluated for use in food supplements) and its addition (tillæg).
Contact for further information
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