Ancient,but how safe?

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: but Shahani, who is technical director of Balance, said that he had the products tested by American laboratories and was not worried about their safety. “We know everything that goes into our products,” he said, adding that he has certificates from the labs to ensure that the products are lead-free.

Kush Khanna, the president of Bazaar of India, defended the safety of the 17 products that Dr Saper listed. All of the items, said Khanna in an e-mail message, have levels of contaminants below the safety levels recommended by the World Health Organisation.

The FDA does not specify maximum acceptable concentrations or daily dose limits for contaminants in dietary supplements. Instead, the onus is on the manufacturer to ensure that its products are safe. What’s more, there are no universally accepted standards for herbal supplements. The Food and Agricultural Organisation/World Health Organisation Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives Secretariat recommends that a 70-kilogram person consume no more than 250 micrograms of lead, 50 micrograms of mercury and 150 micrograms of arsenic per day.

The National Sanitation Foundation International Dietary Supplement Standard suggests a daily limit of 20 micrograms of lead, 20 for mercury and 10 for arsenic. California Proposition 65 has limits of 0.5 microgram of lead per day and 10 micrograms of arsenic per day. There are currently no guidelines for mercury. The presence of metals in certain ayurvedic products may be intentional. An ancient form of ayurveda called Rasa Shastra involves fusing organic and mineral compounds — including pearl, gold, diamonds, copper and mercury — into a medicine and then purifying it into what is believed to be a safe and ingestible form. But the Rasa Shastra products in Dr Saper’s study contained the highest levels of mercury, arsenic and lead — as much as 10,000 times over the recommended limits.

Symptoms of lead poisoning, according to Dr Saper, can include abdominal pain, lethargy, impaired cognition, constipation and anemia. Regardless, some are convinced that the benefits outweigh any pitfalls.