Determination of Heavy Metal Ions in Selected Medicinal Plants of Agra

Abstract

Therapeutic plants have always been valued as a mode of treatment of variety of ailments in folk cultures and have played a very important role in discovering the modern day medicines with novel chemical constituents. Now, is it has been established fact that over dose or prolonged ingestion of medicinal plants leads to the chronic accumulation of different elements which causes various health problems. In this context, elemental contents of the medicinal plants are very important and need to be screened for their quality control. Essential metals can also produce toxic effects when the metal intake is high concentrations, whereas nonessential metals are toxic even in very low concentration for human health. During the present study the levels of Copper, Iron and Zinc in five most important therapeutic plants i. e. Achyranthus aspera, Azadirachta indica, Adhatoda vasica, Ricinus communis and Withania somnifera, of Agra city were determined through AAS. The results were compared with the permissible limits (PL) set by WHO. Accordingly, all plants showed increased levels of Copper and Iron which is alarming. Maximum 35.8 ppm Copper in Azadirachta indica and 674.2ppm Iron in Achyranthus aspera were being observed. Thus, the tested plants showed high content of toxic pollutant due to industrial pollution. Therefore, special care must be taken during the administration of routinely used control practices for herbal medicines screening in order to protect consumers from toxicity.