Studies on the Heavy Metal Contents in Cultivated Medicinal Plants and their Correlations with Soils

수종 재배 약용식물과 토양중 중금속 함량에 관한 연구

Heavy metals may cause trouble(s) in human body. For consideration of the safety of crude drugs cultivated in Korea, we selected some medicinal plants and soils from cultivated site and estimated their heavy metal contents by inductively coupled argon plasma spectrometry (ICAP). Among heavy metals tested, the highest level of Cu and Zn were shown in plants cultivated in Kyung Ki; the highest level of Fe in those in Youngnam and the highest level of Mg and Mn in those in Youngdong. The heavy metal content s were as low as to be permeasible at least for the medicinal plants we selected. There were no significant correlations between heavy metal contents of soils and cultivated medicinal plants.