The Health Benefits of Heavy Metals in Herbal Drinks, Nigeria

Abstract

Herbal drinks are on the increase as they are being imported into developing countries like Nigeria for perceived medicinal uses. The presence of heavy metals in herbal drinks has received special attention due to their interactions with drugs and consequent effect in public health. Toxic metal contamination of soil, aqueous waste streams and groundwater causes major environmental and human health problems. Ten brands of herbal drinks from different supermarkets in Nigeria were randomly sampled and purchased. All samples were pretreated using acid digestion and the concentration of selected heavy metals (As, Pb, Cd, Co, and Cr) and metals (Zn, Fe, Mg and Ca) were determined using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy. For all the herbal samples analyzed, heavy metals such as arsenic (As) and Copper (Co) were the predominant heavy metals that were detected while the rest were of low significant values using the available analytical technique, also the analyzed metals that were equally present in large proportion were Magnesium and Calcium. The metals analyzed occur within varying concentrations. In comparison with permissible levels of herbal products by World Health Organization (Pb) 10ppm, (As) 10ppm, (Cd) 0.30ppm, it can be concluded that the herbal drinks although very useful and medicinal, they can pose health risk to the consumer if not properly processed or purified.