Deadly toxins in Ayurvedic medicines: US study

soulstation

Lot of IMer's are in to Ayurveda. TOI has today reported about a US study that shows Ayurvedic medicines sold in the US containing dangerous levels of lead, mercury and arsenic!

The American medical research community has sounded a heavy metal warning against ayurvedic cures. Herbal products from the Indian system of medicine sold in the US contain dangerous levels of lead, mercury and arsenic, researchers have cautioned.

In a study published in the latest issue of the prestigious Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA), researchers from the Harvard Medical School reported that Herbal Medical Products (HMPs) sold as remedies for treatment of ailments such as arthritis and diabetes contained toxic levels high enough to cause poisoning.

‘‘Users of ayurvedic medicine may be at risk for heavy metal toxicity, and testing of ayurvedic HMPs for toxic heavy metals should be mandatory,’’ the study by Dr Robert Saper and his colleagues warned.

Full article (TOI)

ami

The TOI study which soulstation is refering to does not tell anything about the brands tested for toxic metals or nay other hazardous stuff. my further research into the scare threw up some plain facts.
1. the brands tested were manufactured in US by US companies.
2. none were indian brands!
Plz do not blame ayurveda or indian brands for it. it is people like us who are adding toxins for quick results for consumer satisfactions and of course quick buck.
Ayrveda is perfectly fine thing and i suggest that all should buy products manufactured by Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited (IDPL) and The Himalaya Drug Company. Both are India based companies and their products are widely available anywhere in the world.
AYURVEDA IS A TOTALLY SAFE WAY TO GOOD HEALTH!!

Nick-H

Interesting. I remember (dimly, it was 20 years ago) a case of a man here in London being sent to prison for making people ill with stuff like this. I guess he was incompetent.

But are we all abandoning western medicine because one doctor (Shipman) killed many of his patients with morphine overdoses? Or because some western medicines have had disasterous consequences?

Ami, can you post the names of the products involved in this case?

mira4bai4

This is a tricky one as I read the following from a web site a couple of days ago, however it seemed that the this quote like others on the page were possibly taken out of other documents and may be out of context as reading the previous quotes from this page is difficult to follow.

"Significantly, Dr. Mukesh Batra, head of the Positive Health Clinic, refutes the no-side-effects view; "It is a myth. I would rephrase that. Homeopathy is no toxic because it doesn't deal with chemicals and, therefore, doesn't cause toxic reactions unlike other chemical medicines. For instance, you don't get kidney failure due to the medicines. Even in ayurveda, you sometimes take heavy metals that can lead to kidney failure." The web page.

I only mention this as by not doing so would not seem honest to me.

ami

When Ayurveda was written (approx 3,500 to 4,500 ago) many of the heavy metals and toxics were not discovered. i respect dr batra and i think he must go back to vedas and the ayurveda texts in particular. a few of real Ayurveda medicines only use traces or satva (soul: that is the medicine kept in the vessel made of permitted metals) of ferrous (iron) or 'phool' (alloy of iron and bronze). things like chromium or mercury were not known to indians of that time who wrote ayurveda.

ami

This one is for Nick:
the ayurvedic (?) brands tested for toxics were: Herba; India Essence; Ayur Cure; Sage & Sadhu; and Wisdom.
I ve never heard or seen these brands!!

edwardseco

Glad my brand wasn't there..

beach

Cool down!!!

This has nothing to do with if Ayurveda contains poisonous substance or not. What people sell as Ayurveda need not be always Ayurvedic medicine. In India we have even Chocolate flavored Chavanprash ….what kind of Ayurveda is it???

The real Chavanprash made as per the scripts are not only bitter but very difficult to consume also. Nevertheless that is what gives the real benefit of Chavanprash. My cousin sister is a PG doctor in Ayurveda, she prepared this for the whole crowd of our family. When people tasted it they screamed at her abut the bitter taste . She said that is Chavanprash, if you want Chavanprash in its originality.

Commercialization makes people add things like color, flavor etc. Chocolate Chavanprash….?? Yes. They target the little children. Which child will eat a bitter tonic whatever help id does in brain nourishment.

Do you think that the regular medicines we consume don’t have any harmful effects???...Everything is poison. The question is to what extend?

Then to a larger level a ‘research paper’ is published for business reasons too. That is when some one feel someone else’s business is threatened, a ‘research paper’ appear from no where.

Being in similar filed I know the nastiness and profit lust that drives all these things. It’s 1000 times nastier than the nastiness in the political profession.