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Updated: May 12, 2026

An Anaerobic Biosensor Assay for the Detection of Mercury and Cadmium
Published on: December 17, 2018
Bioaccessibility of mercury in selected Ayurvedic medicines
Iris Koch1, Maeve Moriarty, Jie Sui
1Environmental Sciences Group, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Royal Military College of Canada, K7K 7B4, Canada.
Abstract:
Five Ayurvedic medicines with mercury concentrations of 85mg/kg and higher were characterized with respect to their speciation and their bioaccessibility. X-ray absorption spectroscopy revealed that the mercury in the Ayurvedic medicines was inorganic and best matched to cinnabar, even in samples that had been hypothesized to contain mercury through plant sources only. The bioaccessibility (bioaccessible concentrations and percent bioaccessibility) was measured using two methods: a two-phase physiologically based extraction test (PBET gastric, G and gastric+intestinal phase, GI); and the fed organic estimation human simulation test (FOREhST). The percent bioaccessibility of mercury in all Ayurvedic samples was very low (<5%), corresponding to the low solubility of cinnabar, but it increased with increasing dissolved organic carbon content of the bioaccessibility solutions (PBET-G
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