engleski

Mercury content in phytoestrogen-containing food, herbal row material and dietary supplement samples

Mercury is a toxic heavy metal with no known biologic function in humans. Organic form of this metal is more toxic than inorganic form since it is more readily absorbed through ingestion. Beside this the toxicity of mercury is in part due to the fact that it accumulates in biological tissues (bioaccumulation) and high exposure to this dangerous contaminant of environment may cause neurological disorders including seizures and even death. Little is known about mercury contamination in herbal row material and dietary supplement. For all of the above reasons, the aim of this work was to evaluate total mercury content in phytoestrogen-containing food, herbal row material and dietary supplement samples and to compare to maximum allowed value. Two food samples of soybeans and flax were purchased from a local health food store, 5 samples of dietary supplement row material were kindly donated and 20 dietary supplements containing phytoestrogens were supplied from a community pharmacy. The dietary supplements analyzed in this work were in multiple dosage forms including liquid extracts, tablets and capsules. Liquid products contained only ethanolic herbal extract while other products contained additional ingredients, such as vitamins and minerals. Also, two different batches of each product were analyzed. The content of Hg in the investigated phytoestrogen-containing samples was analyzed by using advanced mercury analyzer AMA-254 with HS cuvette (Leco, Czech Republic) under the following conditions: wavelength 253.6 nm, drying time 60 s, decomposition time 150 s, cuvette clear time 45 s and typical sample mass 100 mg. The determined total mercury content of all phytoestrogen-containing samples varied between 0.16 and 15.81 µg/kg ; mean value 4.01 µg/kg. Furthermore, a statistically significant difference was not found between the content of Hg in food (5.88 µg/kg), herbal row material (3.95 µg/kg) and dietary supplement (3.67 µg/kg) samples. It was interesting to note that the batch-to- batch quality consistency of selected products was evaluated using two different batches of each dietary supplement and variable batch-to- batch uniformity was found among various brands. RSD values were between 0.29 – 67.05 % ; mean value: 18.0 %. To sum up, the obtained data provide evidence that the mercury content in the investigated phytoestrogen-containing food, herbal row material and dietary supplement samples was well below the internationally established maximum allowed value (100 µg/kg).

Hg, phytoestrogens, dietary supplements

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