The short answer is no.
Most ayurvedic medicines and supplements contain very high levels of lead.
If you regularly take any Ayurvedic medicines or herbal powders or or any supplements like Giloy, Shilajit, Ashwagandha, etc., get your blood heavy metal levels tested.
Most of the time, you will find excess levels of various heavy metals like lead, arsenic, or cadmium in your blood.
For example, here are two heavy metal reports I got from Shashi Iyengar, a friend from X who helps people with diabetes. (If you are diabetic, I would recommend hiring him.)
Look, I’m not saying Ayurvedaic medicines are bullshit or that they don’t work.
What I’m telling is that the sourcing, manufacture, and distribution of these Ayurvedic medicines, herbs, and supplements is practically unregulated.
There is no control of what soil the herbs are grown in (the soil is probably the source of the lead and other heavy metals), no enforced hygiene standards, they are often bottled and stored in unsanitary ways, and sometimes contain ingredients that aren’t even listed on the bottle.
Often they are made by “babas” in very unsanitary environments so you get a nice dose of random bacteria along with your heavy metals.
There have been many studies done on Ayurvedic medicines and they all inevitably conclude that heavy metals are a high risk.
2022 Study: Heavy metals were detected in all formulations. The median (range) concentrations (in μg/g or mg/kg) of the metals were quantified as follows- mercury, 13.52 (0.00–61 095.99); arsenic, 0.00 (0.00–1038.83); lead, 1.40 (0.00–57.09); zinc, 84.2200 (26.48–22 519.03); iron, 1356.21 (128.24–136 835.25); copper, 17.1450 (0.00–12 756.86) and chromium, 20.9050 (0.00–2717.58). The metal contents above the FAO/WHO-mandated limit for zinc, mercury, arsenic, and lead were detected in 35, 29, 6, and 2 formulations, respectively. All medications contained detectable quantities of zinc and iron. Copper was detected in all except one. Cadmium was not found in any sample. Ayurvedic medications have a high prevalence of heavy metals.
2017 study: Lead was found in 65% of 252 Ayurvedic medicine samples with mercury and arsenic found in 38 and 32% of samples, respectively. Almost half of samples containing mercury, 36% of samples containing lead and 39% of samples containing arsenic had concentrations of those metals per pill that exceeded, up to several thousand times, the recommended daily intake values for pharmaceutical impurities.
Branded is better than unbranded but get a blood test to know for sure.
Half of the problem with this topic is that some people are hyper-emotional about anything ayurveda and simply refuse to listen to reason.
For them anything negative about Ayurveda is the equivalent of blasphemy. Their defense of heavy metals in all these supposedly “safe and natural” medicines is “bUt AlLoPaThY iS bAD”.
These guys would rather get kidney damage than admit that modern medicine with much higher standards of manufacturing is superior to Ayurveda’s lax manufacturing standards.
Look no one is saying your herb doesn’t work. The herb in itself is not an issue. It might actually work just fine. The problem is the heavy metals.
Just make sure you aren’t getting a whole bunch of lead on the side because lead is definitely bad for you.
If you must take these Ayurvedic medicines and supplements instead of modern medicines, I would say buy them from branded companies instead of unbranded choorans/powders made by some unknown and unorganized industries.
Even with the branded stuff, I would strongly recommend a heavy metal blood test to make sure you aren’t accidentally poisoning yourself with lead and arsenic.
It’s a very cheap test and once you get it done, you’ll know for sure that the pills you are taking aren’t slowly giving you kidney and brain damage.
No matter how emotional you are about Ayurveda, this stuff isn’t worth getting organ damage over so just get yourself tested before you take any of these pills for the long run.
Hope that helps.
Your man,
Harsh Strongman
