title: Adulteration of herbal sexual enhancers and slimmers: The wish for better sexual well-being and perfect body can be risky.
abstract: The popularity of herbal medicines and dietary supplements is increasing all over the world due to the many side-effects assigned to synthetic drugs. Herbal remedies should be considered as safe, with no side-effects, but unfortunately, even if they are labelled as natural, large numbers of adulterants, not only with toxic heavy metals but also with undeclared synthetic substances, have been detected up to date. In this review, the most frequent instances of adulteration of herbal medicines and dietary supplements acting as sexual enhancers and slimming products are thoroughly discussed. The great success of synthetic phosphodiesterase type-5 (PDE-5) inhibitory drugs like sildenafil, vardenafil and tadalafil, used for the treatment of erectile dysfunction has made them, as well as their unapproved analogues, popular as adulterants in herbal dietary supplements. The second group among blockbuster products are herbal preparations for slimming purpose, as obesity and gaining weight are major problems worldwide. Here, sibutramine hydrochloride monohydrate, an anti-obesity drug which inhibits serotonergic and noradrenergic reuptake, seems to be the most common adulterant. Together with large numbers of its analogues, thyroid hormones, anorexigens, diuretics, stimulants, and laxative agents are also detected in most of tested diet supplements.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacognosy with Medicinal Plant Unit, Medical University of Lublin, Poland. Electronic address: kskalicka@pharmacognosy.org.
authors.forename: Krystyna
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Skalicka-Woźniak
authors.affiliation: Group of Plant Cell Biotechnology and Metabolomics, Institute of Microbiology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Plovdiv, Bulgaria; Center of Plant Systems Biology and Biotechnology, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
authors.forename: Milen I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Georgiev
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Gazi University, 06330 Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ilkay Erdogan
authors.initials: IE
authors.lastname: Orhan
mesh_terms: D019440:Anti-Obesity Agents / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D004340:Drug Contamination / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D028321:Plant Preparations / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D000074384:Sexual Health
chemical_list: D019440:Anti-Obesity Agents; D028321:Plant Preparations
keywords: Adulteration; Botanical medicine; Contaminants; Dietary supplements; Sexual enhancers; Slimmers