Medicinal Plants: Linking Herbs Contamination with Human Health Risks

摘要

Medicinal plants started to be considered an alternative option for the treatment of certain diseases, but, nevertheless, due to environmental pollution, they can be subjected to heavy metal contamination, and this can have undesirable consequences for human health. While some herbs have visible effects due to heavy metal accumulation in tissues (chlorosis, necrosis), some may tolerate heavy metals without visible changes and may be hyperaccumulative. Given this, it can be said that the analysis of heavy metal content in plants is a particularly important aspect for assessing the toxicity of heavy metals, both for plants and for human health. The aim of our paper is to focus on (i) investigating medicinal plants as alternative sources of remedy against diseases, (ii) the toxic effects of pollution on medicinal plants and (iii) linking heavy metal contaminated medicinal plants with risks to human health.