BAPP Publishes Lab Guidance Doc on Echinacea Adulteration

The ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program (BAPP) published a new laboratory guidance document on echinacea adulteration.

Echinacea is commonly used for immune support, and for topical applications. In 2024, echinacea-based supplements ranked among the 20 top-selling herbal dietary supplements in both U.S. mainstream and natural retail market channels, according to the American Botanical Council’s 2024 Herb Market Report.

Echinacea roots have a history of adulteration, most notably with roots of American feverfew (Parthenium integrifolium), however, this form of adulteration is not common in trade anymore. Still, some echinacea products contain different species of the same genus, or a mixture of species when the label lists a single species. Other products contain undeclared leaf material or extracts, while others contain excessive amounts of excipients, providing little to no therapeutic benefit to consumers. A more recent form of adulteration of root extracts is the inclusion of Cistanche extracts.

The new document was written by Sebnem Harput Döner, PhD, a natural products chemistry and pharmacology expert in Istanbul, and Stefan Gafner, PhD, chief science officer of the American Botanical Council and BAPP director.

The document reviews the chemical composition of three Echinacea species used in commerce; their adulterants; and the suitability of more than 60 analytical methods for detecting adulteration. These include macroscopic and microscopic evaluations, genetic test methods, and chromatographic, spectrometric, and spectroscopic methods. Fourteen experts in medicinal plant analysis peer-reviewed the bulletin.

“Basing species identification on the determination of one or two chemical markers – for example, cichoric acid for Echinacea purpurea or echinacoside for Echinacea angustifolia – is not sufficient,” said Gafner. “Manufacturers should be aware that several botanicals that are not in the Echinacea genus contain cichoric acid or echinacoside and may be inappropriately used as Echinacea substitutes. As with other botanical ingredients, a series of orthogonal methods, using different analytical tests that measure fundamentally different properties of a sample, is needed to exclude the presence of undeclared Echinacea species or adulterants.”

“So far as we are aware – and we have reviewed much of the world’s scientific literature on the herbs for which BAPP has produced laboratory guidance documents – no one, anywhere, is doing what BAPP is doing,” said Mark Blumenthal, founder and executive director of ABC and founder of BAPP. “That is, BAPP is unique in its attempts to evaluate all available laboratory analytical methods to determine if the published methods are currently fit for purpose to detect the current types of adulteration and fraud that we have confirmed exist in the global market. in this way BAPP is providing responsible members of the herb and medicinal plant community the ability to conform with government-mandated current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMPs) and properly authenticate the correct identity of their botanical ingredients.”

The laboratory guidance document on echinacea is BAPP’s 18th laboratory guidance document, and the program’s 104th peer-reviewed publication. It is freely available on the BAPP webpage.