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Review
. 2021 Apr 26:12:660938.
doi: 10.3389/fphar.2021.660938. eCollection 2021.

Mitochondrial Function as a Potential Tool for Assessing Function, Quality and Adulteration in Medicinal Herbal Teas

Steven B Woodley  1 , Rhys R Mould  1 , Meliz Sahuri-Arisoylu  1   2 , Ifigeneia Kalampouka  1 , Anthony Booker  1   3 , Jimmy D Bell  1
Affiliations
Review

Mitochondrial Function as a Potential Tool for Assessing Function, Quality and Adulteration in Medicinal Herbal Teas

Steven B Woodley et al. Front Pharmacol. .

Abstract

Quality control has been a significant issue in herbal medicine since herbs became widely used to heal. Modern technologies have improved the methods of evaluating the quality of medicinal herbs but the methods of adulterating them have also grown in sophistication. In this paper we undertook a comprehensive literature search to identify the key analytical techniques used in the quality control of herbal medicine, reviewing their uses and limitations. We also present a new tool, based on mitochondrial profiling, that can be used to measure medicinal herbal quality. Besides being fundamental to the energy metabolism required for most cellular activities, mitochondria play a direct role in cellular signalling, apoptosis, stress responses, inflammation, cancer, ageing, and neurological function, mirroring some of the most common reasons people take herbal medicines. A fingerprint of the specific mitochondrial effects of medicinal herbs can be documented in order to assess their potential efficacy, detect adulterations that modulate these effects and determine the relative potency of batches. Furthermore, through this method it will be possible to assess whole herbs or complex formulas thus avoiding the issues inherent in identifying active ingredients which may be complex or unknown. Thus, while current analytical methods focus on determining the chemical quality of herbal medicines, including adulteration and contamination, mitochondrial functional analysis offers a new way of determining the quality of plant derived products that is more closely linked to the biological activity of a product and its potential clinical effectiveness.

Keywords: functional analysis; herbal medicine; herbal tea; mitochondria; potency; quality control.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
PRISMA flow diagram of the literature review process. Adapted from Moher et al (2009).
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Graphical representation of the levels of mitochondrial testing that are possible today.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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