Identification of Synthetic Impurities and Their Significance in Natural Products Quality Control

Abstract

Herbal remedies are widely sought after in developing countries for primary healthcare due to their cost-effectiveness, compatibility with the human body and minimal adverse effects. According to World Health Organization, 80% of the world's population still rely on traditional medicine as their primary health care. Most of the modern drugs in the market such as aspirin, digitoxin, morphine, and quinine are derived through the scientific validation of herbal medicines.Nationally and internationally many of the pharmacopoeias and formularies had incorporated monographs for quality control of herbal species/extracts. These monograph analyses are based on herbal analytical/biological markers. Thus, these markers are gaining importance in the market as they are utilized to standardize and prove the chemical/Biological equivalence of herbal drugs. Thus, herbal drugs are adulterated with these analytical/biological markers for chemical and biological equivalence to match the regulatory requirements. Many of these herbal medicines/dietary supplements are sold in powder form, making them vulnerable to contamination with synthetic analogues. 1 Unfortunately, in today's scenario, most herbal products have not been subjected to a drug approval process to demonstrate their safety and effectiveness.Thus, there is an urge to define specific and novel analytical methods that can identify and quantify the presence of synthetic analogues in herbal medicines/dietary supplements which is evident through the literature for the analysis of herbal medicines for the presence of synthetic analogues. [2][3][4] It is essential to make a qualitative assessment and quantify the synthetic analogue's adulteration to sensitize the regulatory bodies and promote active vigilance on herbal formulations that are prone to adulteration with synthetic analogues. Letter to the Editor