12.05.12
Some dietary supplements labeled as containing “bilberry extract” are adulterated with lower-cost, non-bilberry ingredients that are not listed on the products’ labels, according to a new report in the non-profit American Botanical Council’s fall 2012 issue of its peer-reviewed journal, HerbalGram. Bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) fruit and its products can be found in health products, foods and cosmetics, and are marketed as dietary supplements in the U.S. and as phytomedicines in the European Union. In 2011, bilberry dietary supplements were the 15th best-selling single-herb supplement in the U.S. mainstream market, which includes grocery stores, drug stores and mass-market retail stores. Reported health benefits of bilberry are primarily in the vascular domain and include treatment of vascular insufficiency, capillary fragility and retinopathy.
“Given global demand for this relatively high-cost, wild-harvested berry, bilberry supplies are reportedly rife with economic adulteration,” wrote HerbalGram article co-authors Steven Foster, an author and widely published botanical photographer, and Mark Blumenthal, ABC’s founder and executive director, and editor of HerbalGram. Some of the known adulterants include amaranth dye (also known as azo dye or Red Dye No. 2)—not to be confused with the food amaranth (Amaranthus spp. Additionally, third-party laboratories have reported adulteration of commercial bilberry samples with charcoal, black soybean (Glycine max) hull and black rice (Oryza sativavar. indica) hulls. Industry awareness of bilberry adulteration has led to the development of advanced chemical analyses—including versions of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and other appropriate analytical methods—that can determine the precise contents of bilberry products. The active ingredients responsible for many of bilberry’s beneficial properties are known as anthocyanosides (or anthocyanins). According to the authors, “the mixture…in bilberry produces a unique pattern set that distinguishes bilberry from all other anthocyanoside sources.”
“Given global demand for this relatively high-cost, wild-harvested berry, bilberry supplies are reportedly rife with economic adulteration,” wrote HerbalGram article co-authors Steven Foster, an author and widely published botanical photographer, and Mark Blumenthal, ABC’s founder and executive director, and editor of HerbalGram. Some of the known adulterants include amaranth dye (also known as azo dye or Red Dye No. 2)—not to be confused with the food amaranth (Amaranthus spp. Additionally, third-party laboratories have reported adulteration of commercial bilberry samples with charcoal, black soybean (Glycine max) hull and black rice (Oryza sativavar. indica) hulls. Industry awareness of bilberry adulteration has led to the development of advanced chemical analyses—including versions of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and other appropriate analytical methods—that can determine the precise contents of bilberry products. The active ingredients responsible for many of bilberry’s beneficial properties are known as anthocyanosides (or anthocyanins). According to the authors, “the mixture…in bilberry produces a unique pattern set that distinguishes bilberry from all other anthocyanoside sources.”