Drug adulteration of food supplements: A threat to public health in the European Union?

Czepielewska, Edyta; Makarewicz‐Wujec, Magdalena; Różewski, Filip; Wojtasik, Elżbieta; Kozłowska−Wojciechowska, Małgorzata

doi:10.1016/j.yrtph.2018.06.014

Cited by 43 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Quality issues can be assigned to either unintentional (e.g., due to a lack of quality control, instability, and contamination) or intentional (e.g., adulteration, with the motivation of economic gain) acts [7]. Typical examples of quality issues are (a) mislabeling [6], (b) the presence of contaminants [8], (c) adulterations and usage of unauthorized substances [9][10][11], and (d) active ingredient content quality issues [12][13][14][15][16][17]. For example, Mannino et al [17] recently investigated 24 food supplements that claimed to contain cranberry, but 17 samples did not comply with the uniformity test of dosage forms and only five actually contained cranberry.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Approach to Investigate Content-Related Quality of Nutraceuticals Used by Slovenian Consumers: A Case Study with Folate and Vitamin D Supplements

Žmitek

Krušič

Pravst

2021

Foods

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A predisposition for the efficiency of nutraceuticals is that the product contains a sufficient quantity of a vitamin. Several studies have highlighted different quality issues. Our objective was to investigate whether the contents of the vitamins in selected types of food supplements were in accordance with labeling. We focused on two types of food supplements where content-related quality issues could result in public health risks: food supplements for supplementation with (a) folic acid (as 5-methyltetrahydrofolate (5-MTHF)) in pregnancy and (b) with vitamin D in the general population. The study was done on supplements from the global supply that are typically used by Slovenian consumers. We sampled one production batch of 30 different food supplements—six and 24 samples with 5-MTHF and cholecalciferol, respectively. We found samples with vitamin contents outside the 80–150% tolerance interval in both sets. Particularly, 5-MTHF was found to be more problematic, probably due to its lower stability. This study shows the need for better quality control. Quality control is needed during both the manufacturing process and product shelf lifetimes. Content quality should be also subject to external controls by authorities. Voluntarily quality control schemes would also enable consumers to identify products of sufficient quality.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Approach to Investigate Content-Related Quality of Nutraceuticals Used by Slovenian Consumers: A Case Study with Folate and Vitamin D Supplements

Žmitek

Krušič

Pravst

2021

Foods

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“…In recent decades, food supplements have an important impact on the consumers showing a significant expectation for their health and well-being [ 1 ]. They are concentrated sources of nutrients or bioactive compounds endowed with nutritional or physiological effects and, due to their presumed health benefits, they can supplement the common diet [ 2 , 3 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bud-Derivatives, a Novel Source of Polyphenols and How Different Extraction Processes Affect Their Composition

Turrini

Donno

Beccaro

et al. 2020

Foods

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The use of herbal food supplements, as a concentrate form of vegetable extracts, increased so much over the past years to count them among the relevant sources of dietetic polyphenols. Bud-derivatives are a category of botanicals perceived as a “new entry” in this sector since they are still poorly studied. Due to the lack of a manufacturing process specification, very different products can be found on the market in terms of their polyphenolic profile depending on the experimental conditions of manufacturing. In this research two different manufacturing processes, using two different protocols, and eight species (Carpinus betulus L., Cornus mas L., Ficus carica L., Fraxinus excelsior L., Larix decidua Mill., Pinus montana Mill., Quercus petraea (Matt.) Liebl., Tilia tomentosa Moench), commonly used to produce bud-derivatives, have been considered as a case study. An untargeted spectroscopic fingerprint of the extracts, coupled to chemometrics, provide to be a useful tool to identify these botanicals. The targeted phytochemical fingerprint by HPLC provided a screening of the main bud-derivatives polyphenolic classes highlighting a high variability depending on both method and protocol used. Nevertheless, ultrasonic extraction proved to be less sensitive to the different extraction protocols than conventional maceration regarding the extract polyphenolic profile.

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“…Over the last two decades, adulterated food supplements have become a rising public health threat [137]. One of the common economically motivated adulteration strategies is the addition of some undeclared drugs, their synthetic analogues or other unauthorised compounds to FS in order to intensify its claimed effects [138].…”

Section: Pharmacologically Active Ingredientsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contaminants: a dark side of food supplements?

Costa

Vidović

Saraiva

et al. 2019

Free Radical Research

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Food supplements (FS) are often consumed as one of the strategies to fight ageing-associated pathologies, especially in the case of oxidative stress-related diseases. Despite the popularity of FS, some concerns about their quality and safety have been raised, especially regarding the presence of contaminants. This paper reviews and discusses the occurrence of contaminants in marketed samples of FS in the last two decades, considering both scientific literature and notifications registered on RASFF portal. The most relevant classes of contaminants were included namely metals, toxins, pesticides, dioxins and PCBs, as well as pharmacologically active ingredients. Variable amounts of contaminants were reported in a significant number of commercially available FS. Although the presence of contaminants does not necessarily mean that their levels exceed the regulatory limits or that the FS intake constitutes a risk to human health, it alerts for the need to further monitor FS safety. The evaluation of the risk associated to the consumption of FS, especially in the elderly population, is particularly challenging due to the frequent exposure to multiple toxicants and to different exposure sources, as well as due to possible pre-existing diseases and respective therapeutics. Therefore, improved quality control procedures and monitoring programs should be pursued in order to avoid undesirable products and assure the safety of FS.

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Drug adulteration of food supplements: A threat to public health in the European Union?

Cited by 43 publications

References 12 publications

An Approach to Investigate Content-Related Quality of Nutraceuticals Used by Slovenian Consumers: A Case Study with Folate and Vitamin D Supplements

An Approach to Investigate Content-Related Quality of Nutraceuticals Used by Slovenian Consumers: A Case Study with Folate and Vitamin D Supplements

Bud-Derivatives, a Novel Source of Polyphenols and How Different Extraction Processes Affect Their Composition

Contaminants: a dark side of food supplements?

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