Patel et al. 2023 - Metals in herbal plants from Singrauli, India

Patel, Pradhan, and Patel measured Pb, Cr, Cd, Cu, Ni, Zn, and Fe in three herbal or food plant materials from the Singrauli region of Madhya Pradesh: ginger rhizome, suran rhizome, and cumin seed. Table 2 reports Pb, Cr, Cd, and Ni as non-detect in all three plant samples. The same table reports quantifiable Cu, Zn, and Fe values, with cumin seed at 13.675 mg/kg Cu, 38.55 mg/kg Zn, and 201.775 mg/kg Fe. Because the paper does not report LOD or LOQ values, the toxic-metal non-detects are useful as screening context but should not be treated as zero-valued occurrence measurements.

Key numbers

Table 2 reports heavy-metal concentrations in plant samples in mg/kg.

Table 1 gives the source-cited plant-material permissible values as Cd 0.02 mg/kg, Zn 50 mg/kg, Cu 10 mg/kg, Cr 1.30 mg/kg, Pb 2 mg/kg, Ni 10 mg/kg, and Fe 20 mg/kg. By the authors’ comparison, all three Fe values exceed the cited Fe value, cumin Cu exceeds the cited Cu value, and Zn remains below the cited Zn value in all three samples. The source states that Cd, Cr, Pb, and Ni were not detected in the analyzed plant samples, but it does not provide detection limits for those non-detects.

Methods (brief)

The authors collected ginger rhizomes, suran rhizomes, and cumin seeds from different locations within the Singrauli region. Plant materials were washed, chopped, air-dried, oven-dried at 35 C, ground to 80 mesh powder, and stored in labeled sterile poly bags before digestion.

For digestion, 2 g dry-weight sample portions were treated with 10 mL of 98% nitric acid, cold-soaked for 30 minutes, heated to 120 C for 2 hours, filtered, and diluted before analysis. Pb, Cu, Cd, Ni, Cr, Zn, and Fe were measured by atomic absorption spectrophotometry using an ECIL AAS. The paper states that certified standard reference material was used and that blanks and standards were run after five determinations. It does not report LOD, LOQ, recovery percentages, replicate counts, or metal speciation.

Implications

Certification: This source provides India-region screening context for cumin seed and two other herbal/food plant materials, but the toxic-metal entries are non-detects without LOD/LOQ. The Cu, Zn, and Fe values are extractable concentration values; the Pb, Cr, Cd, and Ni non-detects should not enter benchmark pooling as zeroes.

Courses: Useful as a short example of why non-detect reporting needs detection-limit metadata. The same table can be read as “no reported Pb/Cd/Cr/Ni detections” and as “quantified Cu/Zn/Fe occurrence,” but those are different evidence claims.

App: Adds regional context for cumin seed and broad botanical/spice materials from Singrauli, India. Because the paper reports one row per plant species and no market-frame sampling design, app use should frame this as low-resolution regional evidence.

Microbiome: Not addressed.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• cumin
• yam
• spices
• herbs-and-spices
• spices
• condiments-general
• supplements-botanicals-herbs
• lead
• chromium
• cadmium
• copper
• nickel
• zinc
• iron

Verification notes

• DOI, title, authors, journal, and year were taken from the PDF first page: International Journal of Chemical and Biological Sciences 2023; 5(2): 25-27, DOI 10.33545/26646765.2023.v5.i2a.66.
• The source spells the cumin binomial as Cuminum Cyminum; this page preserves the common matrix as cumin seed and routes to the existing [[ingredients/cumin]] page.
• The source includes ginger, but no existing wiki/ingredients/ginger.md slug is present in this repo. Ginger is therefore documented in the body table but omitted from frontmatter ingredient routing.
• Suran is mapped to the existing broad [[ingredients/yam]] slug. The source does not provide enough taxonomy detail in the frontmatter layer to create a more specific suran or elephant-foot-yam route during this fire.
• Evidence Fitness: EF-2 for quantified Cu, Zn, and Fe in three plant materials; EF-3 screening context for Pb, Cr, Cd, and Ni because the paper reports ND without LOD/LOQ. The source should not be used as a distribution-capable benchmark source for Pb, Cr, Cd, or Ni.

Page history

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.