Researchers in Boston have just released the findings of a recent study that evaluated the levels of certain toxic metals in a randomly selected list of Ayurvedic medicines sold over the internet. The analysis reveals Ayurvedic medicines laced with toxic metals, including arsenic, lead, and mercury, include about 20% of all such products on the internet market and many of them contain higher levels of these metals than federal standards for toxicity allow.

In India, populated by more than 1.1 billion people, Ayurvedic medicine is the most commonly used form of medical treatment. This form of medicine is practiced widely in South and Southeastern Asia but its popularity is growing on a worldwide scale. Considered safe and therapeutic for centuries, 80 or more cases of lead poisoning have been traced to Ayurvedic medicine since 1978.

There are two main branches to Ayurvedic medicine - one herbal only and the other rasa shastra, involving the deliberate combination of herbs with metals such as iron, lead, mercury, and zinc and minerals such as mica and gems, including the pearl. Many of the internet sales outlets for medicinal preparations identified as Ayurvedic originate in the United States and India. Neither country regulates the ingredients used in products marketed as herbal remedies or mineral supplements.

To find out what’s really in the medicine, Robert B. Saper, MD, MPH, and his team conducted internet searches using the terms Ayurveda and Ayurvedic medicine to locate several hundred products. Saper is affiliated with the Boston University School of Medicine and the Boston Medical Center.

Between August and October of 2005, Saper’s team purchased 230 of these products, all chosen at random. Only 193 products reached the lab for analysis using x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy.

Of the 193 products analyzed, 20.7% of them contained metals. Products made in the US contained metals 21.7% of the time and those made in India contained metal 19.5% of the time. Products for rasa shastra use were found to be twice as likely to contain metal than those not so designated.

The research team purchased 95% of its products containing metals from websites with US addresses. Of them, 75% claimed to participate in the Good Manufacturing Practices program. Nevertheless, all products containing metal were found to exceed acceptable levels of metal in one or more criteria.

Some of the metal-containing products purchased from Indian sources contained levels of lead or mercury, or both, at levels that exceeded safe levels by 100 to 10,000 times.

As a result of its findings, the Saper team is calling on the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to implement regulatory standards for the manufacture and sale of all dietary supplements. The team also calls upon regulatory agencies in India to do the same. Some improvements the team suggests are standardized dosages, maximum concentration level to gain acceptance, and independent third-party analysis to test compliance.

Full details of the Saper study can be found in the August 27 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).