Examples of poisonings due to people mistakenly picking and consuming poisonous botanicals in the wild made it clear that, contrary to claims by an alarming number of nutritionists and supplement sales compnies, natural does not mean safe.
Nature has always been just as toxic as any synthetic chemical and people being sold botanicals need public awareness, and they won't get it from the people making money off of their lack of knowledge.
When health problems occur, medical professionals also need better awareness of negative health consequences related to consuming certain botanicals – both acute effects and adverse effects due to prolonged use – to ensure such effects can be reported and factored into risk assessments.
At a conference organized by the National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark along with the French institute for risk assessment, ANSES, and the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, BfR, presenters discussed the risks and concerns.
Botanicals and preparations derived from plants, algae, fungi or lichens have become widely available to consumers worldwide in the form of unregulated and often suspect food supplements. A trend has also emerged where people collect botanicals in the wild for use in ordinary food, though some botanicals or botanical preparations may pose a risk to human health and data on the safety and quality of many of their bioactive substances is limited.
Safety assessment of botanicals and preparations thereof used in food supplements is not subject to EU regulation but is monitored by national food authorities in European member states.
The speakers highlighted the challenges in communicating risks in a relevant way to different consumer groups and talked about the difficulties in setting and enforcing rules governing the composition and sale of food supplements containing botanicals.
Although the conference showed that progress is being made around the world to collate data on the relevant bioactive agents, it was made clear that data gaps relating to their safety and quality still exist. Concerns were also raised regarding the lack of scientific data on products containing several botanicals with respect to how these ingredients might react in combination.
It was suggested that part of the answer to filling these gaps could be creating positive lists of botanicals and harmonizing the way the safety of these products is assessed. Such an approach would help accelerate mutual recognition of data as well as products based on scientific information.
There were calls for more comprehensive information to be made available about the botanical constituents in food supplements – e.g. scientific name, plant part used, how the ingredients are derived and recommended daily doses of individual ingredients. This would make the information immediately useful in the risk assessments of products.
Source: Technical University of Denmark
