Pesticides in Nutritional Supplements

by Arthur
(US)

I have looked at the multivitamin nutritional supplements in your comparisons but how can I know if a supplement is safe and has no pesticides in it. Can you comment on the subject of pesticides in health supplements?



Brett's Answer:

Hi Arthur, your question is an important one. Thanks for asking.

The situation regarding nutritional supplements and pesticides is something that supplement users need to acquaint themselves with.

Once they understand what they should be looking for and what questions they need to ask then they can be confident in tracking down only contaminant free multivitamin nutritional supplements (or any other kind of supplement!).

Because there are disreputable supplement manufacturers out there who buy the cheapest of raw ingredients, which have undergone minimal quality assurance measures and do not come with a certificate of analysis, and then do little to no testing themselves, this pesticide issue must be taken seriously by supplement users.

Here is an excerpt from an article titled:

'PESTICIDES IN BOTANICAL DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS'

from the IV International Conference on Quality and Safety Issues Related to Botanicals (Authors: J.W. Wong, M.S. Wirtz, M.K. Hennessy, F.J. Schenck, A.J. Krynitsky, S.G. Capar)

...In samples collected in 2004, pesticides were found in 44 out of 87 samples of botanical dietary supplements (the majority of these being ginseng products) suspected of containing pesticides.

Over 30 different types of organochlorine, organophosphorus, and organonitrogen pesticide residues were present in these samples, with pentachloroaniline, pentachlorobenzene, and quintozene being the most abundant.

A majority of these products contained more than one pesticide; one such sample was found to contain as many as 12 organochlorine compounds....

FRIGHTENING ISN'T IT!

Now Arthur, the problem of pesticides relates only to plant derived ingredients in a supplement.

The issue with pesticides is heavy metal residues from the pesticide sprays. You don't need to worry about all the other components because they are removed during the extraction processes.

So if you have your eye on a particular multivitamin nutritional supplement the first thing you must determine from a safety point of view is does the manufacturer test every batch of raw materials for heavy metals?

This should be clearly displayed on a supplement company's website under their safety testing or safety protocols pages.

If you can find nothing about this listed then that should raise an immediate red flag. You can always email the company and ask them but you shouldn't have to do this.

Be sure the company makes it clear that they do heavy metals testing on every batch FOR ALL PLANT DERIVED INGREDIENTS AND NOT JUST THE HERBAL EXTRACTS.

Furthermore a professional company will ALSO perform a heavy metal test on all finished batches of product. Be sure to check this out before purchasing any kind of supplement.

If a company follows these protocols then you can rest assured that their nutritional supplements are pesticide free.

Arthur, I hope this helps.

And by the way I wonder if you wouldn't mind telling some of your health conscious friends about my site. Any of them that currently use health supplements may find it of interest to see my health supplement comparisons and reviews.

This link will open my health supplement comparisons and reviews page.


Yours In Good Health

Brett