Quality assurance and safety of herbal dietary supplements

Since the U.S. Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) in 1994, use of herbal products has been growing rapidly worldwide. To ensure consumer health protection, the quality and safety of herbal plants, particularly those used for dietary supplement preparations, must be determined. To date, toxicological data on the identification of genotoxic and tumorigenic ingredients in many raw herbs and their mechanisms of action are lacking. Thus, identification of carcinogenic components in herbal plants is timely and important. In this review, the issues of quality control and safety evaluation of raw herbs and herbal dietary supplements are discussed. Two examples of tumorigenicity and mechanism of tumor induction are discussed: aristolochic acid and riddelliine, both of which have been detected in Chinese herbal plants. It is proposed that an organized effort with international participation on cancer risk assessment should be actively pursued so that the safety of commercial herbal plants and herbal dietary supplements can be ensured.