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Herbal Dietary Supplements Are Focus
New June 6, 2000 COLUMBIA, Mo. — A $5.7 million effort led by the University of Missouri's School of Medicine and the Missouri Botanical Garden may soon provide information about the safety of herbal dietary supplements. The School of Medicine-Botanical Garden program was funded as part of the National Institutes of Health effort to establish centers in the United States that will also study the composition, efficacy and the toxicity of the supplements. This research addresses the need for scientific rigor to supplement the anecdotal evidence collected over centuries in which people have used plant products to solve health problems. The research is being funded by NIH and will allow botanists to develop protocols for rapid, inexpensive identification of plant species used as ingredients in botanical products. The goal is to ensure that desired species are not confused with look-alike plants or contaminated with a dangerous species. "One long-term goal is to do some sort of DNA fingerprinting to identify plants and go back and find which of the many compounds in them are active," said Dennis Lubahn, PhD, professor of biochemistry and child health and one of the principal researchers in the project. The five-year grant takes MU a step further in its quest of becoming a pre-eminent plant biotechnology research center. It will create the Center for Phytonutrient and Phytochemical Studies in Columbia. "The center will provide increased knowledge about these products in bettering the health of our society," said William Folk, PhD, chairman of the biochemistry department at MU. Lubahn stresses the advantage of MU's research diversity in winning the grant. That diversity includes strong programs in several disciplines, including agriculture, human medicine and veterinary medicine. Another advantage in the eyes of
NIH is the botanical Garden's herbarium, which has more than 5 million
plant specimens from around the world.
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