Heavy Metal Index

Investigation of heavy metals in frequently utilized medicinal plants collected from environmentally diverse locations of north western India

Source access

Publication
SpringerPlus
Year
2013
Authors
Kulhari A; Sheorayan A; Bajar S; Sarkar S
Source type
peer reviewed
License
CC BY 2.0

Kulhari et al. 2013 - metals in northwestern India medicinal plants

Kulhari and colleagues measured manganese, chromium, lead, iron, cadmium, nickel, cobalt, zinc, and mercury in stem and leaf samples from ten medicinal plant species collected in Haryana and Rajasthan, India. The study is occurrence evidence for herbal-botanical raw materials, with plant part and collection district visible in the source tables. Values are dry-weight total elemental measurements in ppm; chromium is total Cr, not Cr-VI, and mercury was below detectable levels in all reported rows.

Key numbers

All values below are from Tables 4 and 5 and are reported as mean ± SE in ppm on a dry-weight basis. BDL means below detectable level in the source table. No unit conversion is applied.

Medicinal plantPartCollection district/stateMnCrPbFeCdNiCoZnHg
Acacia niloticaStemJhunjhunu, Rajasthan5.22 ± 0.10401.87 ± 0.02020.25 ± 0.008825.30 ± 0.1464BDL0.45 ± 0.02400.04 ± 0.00882.42 ± 0.2173BDL
Bacopa monnieriStemBahadurgarh, Haryana4.23 ± 0.07442.62 ± 0.02402.34 ± 0.017317.16 ± 0.17630.02 ± 0.00330.26 ± 0.02840.05 ± 0.00336.75 ± 0.1223BDL
Commiphora wightiiStemMahendergarh, Haryana2.51 ± 0.01762.87 ± 0.02020.63 ± 0.008819.45 ± 0.2334BDL0.55 ± 0.01730.02 ± 0.00887.74 ± 0.0802BDL
Ficus religiosaStemJhunjhunu, Rajasthan4.52 ± 0.01762.67 ± 0.03710.36 ± 0.031724.35 ± 0.18080.02 ± 0.00100.64 ± 0.01450.12 ± 0.012014.17 ± 0.0736BDL
Glycyrrhiza glabraStemBahadurgarh, Haryana4.78 ± 0.02403.56 ± 0.03050.41 ± 0.018521.21 ± 0.01730.03 ± 0.01200.06 ± 0.01200.20 ± 0.01855.52 ± 0.0202BDL
Hemidesmus indicusStemFathebad, Haryana5.43 ± 0.01734.89 ± 0.02020.66 ± 0.035215.42 ± 0.01760.03 ± 0.01451.07 ± 0.00570.23 ± 0.08817.13 ± 0.0115BDL
Salvadora oleoidesStemChuru, Rajasthan2.85 ± 0.02183.68 ± 0.02020.83 ± 0.008811.89 ± 0.0317BDL0.47 ± 0.01150.13 ± 0.01735.59 ± 0.0317BDL
Terminalia belliricaStemFathebad, Haryana6.13 ± 0.01763.80 ± 0.04500.63 ± 0.011516.34 ± 0.03920.03 ± 0.00880.43 ± 0.01730.21 ± 0.02905.46 ± 0.0545BDL
Terminalia chebulaStemFathebad, Haryana5.67 ± 0.03842.92 ± 0.02020.62 ± 0.038416.19 ± 0.06330.03 ± 0.01520.64 ± 0.07500.20 ± 0.05896.32 ± 0.0202BDL
Withania somniferaStemBahadurgarh, Haryana2.39 ± 0.02184.93 ± 0.01852.64 ± 0.026019.13 ± 0.01760.04 ± 0.00880.53 ± 0.02960.14 ± 0.01528.93 ± 0.0264BDL
Acacia niloticaLeafJhunjhunu, Rajasthan3.16 ± 0.03718.73 ± 0.02600.21 ± 0.020816.01 ± 0.0642BDL0.59 ± 0.02020.19 ± 0.02843.09 ± 0.0305BDL
Bacopa monnieriLeafBahadurgarh, Haryana1.67 ± 0.042513.19 ± 0.04800.54 ± 0.041714.19 ± 0.06330.03 ± 0.00880.23 ± 0.03170.15 ± 0.01154.80 ± 0.0907BDL
Commiphora wightiiLeafMahendergarh, Haryana2.84 ± 0.06888.53 ± 0.03170.21 ± 0.014513.30 ± 0.0264BDL0.26 ± 0.03480.20 ± 0.02002.10 ± 0.0173BDL
Ficus religiosaLeafJhunjhunu, Rajasthan2.60 ± 0.03929.54 ± 0.02020.32 ± 0.024012.42 ± 0.02720.03 ± 0.00570.30 ± 0.02960.14 ± 0.01203.25 ± 0.0240BDL
Glycyrrhiza glabraLeafBahadurgarh, Haryana2.23 ± 0.03059.17 ± 0.01730.32 ± 0.023311.33 ± 0.02960.03 ± 0.016600.38 ± 0.02330.40 ± 0.02513.89 ± 0.0348BDL
Hemidesmus indicusLeafFathebad, Haryana2.26 ± 0.026011.68 ± 0.04800.25 ± 0.008813.64 ± 0.01150.16 ± 0.02600.32 ± 0.01730.16 ± 0.02514.18 ± 0.0212BDL
Salvadora oleoidesLeafChuru, Rajasthan0.89 ± 0.045810.48 ± 0.04400.52 ± 0.020211.03 ± 0.0497BDL0.48 ± 0.01930.15 ± 0.02084.40 ± 0.0240BDL
Terminalia belliricaLeafFathebad, Haryana2.60 ± 0.034811.02 ± 0.08080.25 ± 0.012013.21 ± 0.02020.21 ± 0.01760.26 ± 0.02570.18 ± 0.01453.28 ± 0.0145BDL
Terminalia chebulaLeafFathebad, Haryana2.04 ± 0.026411.23 ± 0.08870.48 ± 0.029014.59 ± 0.03520.02 ± 0.01200.57 ± 0.02640.17 ± 0.02642.58 ± 0.0237BDL
Withania somniferaLeafBahadurgarh, Haryana0.34 ± 0.015212.34 ± 0.04580.81 ± 0.036017.44 ± 0.02020.04 ± 0.02740.19 ± 0.03710.14 ± 0.01354.10 ± 0.0360BDL

The abstract highlights total Cr 13.19 ± 0.0480 ppm in Bacopa monnieri leaves and 4.93 ± 0.0185 ppm in Withania somnifera stems, both collected from Bahadurgarh. The same abstract highlights Pb 2.64 ± 0.0260 ppm and Cd 0.04 ± 0.0274 ppm in Bahadurgarh samples; Table 4 identifies the Pb value as Withania somnifera stem, and Table 5 identifies the Cd value as Withania somnifera leaf.

Methods (brief)

The authors collected stem and leaf samples of ten medicinal plants from Jhunjhunu, Churu, Bahadurgarh, Fathebad, and Mahendergarh in northwestern India. Samples were washed with running tap water and deionized autoclaved water, shade-dried, powdered, and stored in airtight bottles. Five-gram powdered portions were charred for 3–4 hours, ashed at 500 °C for 6 hrs, digested in a nitric/perchloric acid mixture at 9:1 for 3 hours in a 70 °C water bath, reconstituted to 20 ml, filtered through 0.45 μ Whatman paper, and analyzed by flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry using a Shimadzu AA 6300. Standards for Fe, Pb, Mn, Cr, Zn, Cd, Co, Hg, and Ni were procured from Merck; all samples were analyzed in triplicate. The source reports total elements; no arsenic speciation, mercury speciation, or Cr-VI data are reported.

Implications

The paper contributes stem- and leaf-specific occurrence data for herbal-botanical raw materials collected across urban, industrial, and less-industrial locations in northwestern India. The data should remain plant-part-specific in downstream evidence work because the reported Cr, Pb, Fe, Cd, Ni, Co, Zn, Mn, and Hg values differ substantially between stem and leaf rows.

Wiki pages this source may touch

Verification notes

  • Identity checks on 2026-06-09 found no existing source page for DOI 10.1186/2193-1801-2-676, raw handle MFK_kulhari2013, or cite key kulhari2013-medicinal-plants-metals-india.
  • DOI check: the DOI is printed in the extracted PDF text near the reference/citation block as doi:10.1186/2193-1801-2-676.
  • All Key numbers were re-checked against Tables 2, 4, and 5 in /tmp/hmi-june9-103.txt extracted with pdftotext -layout. Values, BDL cells, plant parts, and collection districts are copied from the source tables without rounding, averaging, or conversion.
  • Units are preserved as ppm on the source’s dry-weight basis. The page does not convert ppm to mg/kg or ppb.
  • Speciation check: chromium is total Cr by FAAS, not Cr-VI. Mercury is reported only as Hg below detectable level, not methylmercury.
  • Brand firewall check: no commercial brands or producers are reported; Merck and Shimadzu are methods/vendors only.
  • Closed vocabulary check: products, ingredients, metals, and wiki-page links use slugs present in docs/gpt-collaboration/taxonomy-snapshot.md. Exact plant species such as Acacia nilotica, Bacopa monnieri, Commiphora wightii, Ficus religiosa, Glycyrrhiza glabra, Hemidesmus indicus, Salvadora oleoides, Terminalia bellirica, Terminalia chebula, and Withania somnifera do not all have closed ingredient slugs, so they remain in table text only.

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The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.

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4039d202026-06-10scope: broaden ingest to the full upstream+downstream literature (marine, atmospheric, attribution, exposure, toxicology) — inclusion is the default