한약재 복용으로 인한 금속 섭취량 추정 및 위해성 평가 연구

Metal exposure through consumption of herbal medicine, and estimation of health risk among Korean population

Metal contamination of medicinal herbs is of growing concern because of their potential adverse health effects. In thisstudy, metal exposures were estimated and their potential health risks were preliminarily evaluated using available dataincluding metal contamination levels and consumption estimates of herbal medicine in Korea. Consumption and contaminationdata of 34 medicinal herbs abundantly used in Oriental medicine in Korea were used in this study. Lead,mercury, arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, and chrome were identified as contaminants of potential health concerns. Evenbased on a conservative exposure scenario, i.e., consuming 5 times more herbal medicine with 95th percentile contaminationlevels, health risks associated with herbal medicine consumption were estimated to be minuscule. Herbalconsumption was 0.3% of the provisional tolerable daily intake levels recommended by Joint Expert Committee onFood Additives (JECFA) of WHO/FAO. However, it should be noted that there are several important assumptions anduncertainties associated with this evaluation: This study was conducted for only 34 types of medicinal herbs of whichconsumption and metal contamination data were available. In addition, there are no reliable herbal medicine consumptiondata among Korean population. The pattern and amount of herbal (medicine) consumption in Korea need tobe investigated in order to conduct more refined risk assessment associated with metal contamination in medicinal herbs.