The Governmental Institute of Standards and Technology ( NIST ) has issued the rudimentary syndicate of Standard Reference Materials ( SRMs ) dominion a planned series of reference materials for botanical dietary supplements.
The dietary addition industry has exploded prestige the foregone decade to about 29, 000 wares, protect about 1, 000 modern wares introduced each while, according to the Chow and Drug Administration ( FDA ). Moment 2001 NIST began working stash the FDA and the National Institutes of Health ' s Office of Dietary Supplements ( NIH / ODS ) on a series of SRMs of popular botanical dietary supplements. Manufacturers burden object these materials for quality guidance, and researchers rap employment them to ensure that their laboratory analyses of supplements are accurate. Products congenerous owing to botanical supplements, that posses been derived from extracts of plant materials are man-sized to analyze accurately since of their miscellaneous exemplification matrices.
The unlike NIST reference materials were designed primarily for superiority strings of supplements containing ephedra, a plant once widely used mastery herbal weight - loss wares. Ephedra products were pulled from the market by the FDA drag 2004 after being linked to cardiovascular problems, but the topical assessment materials progress estimable both to effect that spick-and-span commodities are not adulterated hold back ephedra and as they also importance put on used to make strides several other guide measurements prestige other botanical supplements, including concentrations of potentially toxic massive metals.
The modish reference materials perform several unequal forms of ephedra and entail powdered plant material ( SRM 3240 ), a ground solid spoken dosage formation ( SRM 3243 ), and a protein powder ( SRM 3244 ). The materials are certified for their concentrations of the ephedrine alkaloids and potentially toxic elements ( including arsenic, cadmium, front and mercury ). SRM 3243 again provides certified values for synephrine ( a compound pressure some of the " ephedra - comp " weight - loss products ) and caffeine. SRM 3244 adds values for caffeine, theobromin, theophylline, and nutrients including fat, protein, carbohydrate, idiosyncratic fatty acids and amino acids, vitamins and nutritive elements.