The American Botanical Council (ABC) has published its latest bulletin on Ayurvedic herb Bacopa monnieri through its ongoing Botanical Adulterants Prevention Programme (BAPP).
The scheme is designed to assist members of the nutraceutical and supplement industries to access a one-stop guide to popular botanicals — helping them to effectively detect adulterated products.
Each bulletin also details the botanical in question's taxonomy, as well as its uses, supply and market status.
The ABC's decision to run BAPP follows the rapid rise in reported cases of nutraceutical adulteration, which the ABC's Technical Director Stefan Gafner, discusses in a recent paper.
Bacopa mislabelling remains problematic
Bacopa is a highly popular Ayurvedic herb that has been used for centuries to support cognition by boosting concentration and memory.
Generally, the above-ground parts of the plant are used in dietary supplements, which can benefit people with the management of insomnia, stress and anxiety.
However, another common Ayurvedic herb, known as gotu kola (Centella asiatica) has the same common sanskrit name as bacopa.
This is because ancient Ayurvedic literature considers them to have highly similar effects; deeming them substitutes for each other when taken medicinally.
Although they do exhibit some similarities when used in supplements, their phytochemical makeup, mechanisms of action and whole-body benefits differ, resulting in the common accidental mislabelling of both bacopa and gotu kola products.
Bulletin summary
In this edition of BAPP, Nilüfer Orhan — an expert in natural products chemistry and pharmacology — as well as 18 other quality control experts in the medicinal plant niche, cover key elements all brands working with bacopa should consider, including:
- The herb's natural distribution
- Bacopa's 'usable parts' and what they do
- The plant's characteristic alkaloid/polyphenol constituents
- The bacopa trade landscape
- Common adulterants
- How brands can employ analytical testing to determine the purity of a bacopa sample
“Due to the use of the same common name for bacopa and gotu kola in some languages, and the interchangeable use in traditional Ayurvedic medicine, these two plants are sometimes mislabelled in the botanical trade," explained Stefan Gafner, Chief Science Officer of the nonprofit American Botanical Council (ABC).
"Such mislabeling is readily detected by analytical laboratory testing, though manufacturers should be aware of nomenclatural confusion and take appropriate steps to ensure the correct botanical identity of their materials.”
“The primary reason we chose to research and publish the bacopa bulletin was to clarify a nomenclatural issue," added Mark Blumenthal, founder and executive director of ABC and founder of BAPP.
“Bacopa can also be subject to intentional adulteration and fraud, so we also wanted to cover this base."
The BAPP bacopa bulletin is the 30th publication in the series of BAPBs and the 94th peer-reviewed document published by BAPP.
The document is freely accessible on BAPP's homepage on the ABC website.
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