Heavy Metal Herbals
“Natural” can Still Be Harmful.
This week I was recommended to start taking an herb supplement called “birth prep” by my incredible midwives. The goal was to start contracting my uterus to prepare it for labor.
BUT . . . I noticed the bottle read “take a maximum of two tablets” and the website recommended taking “up to six tablets a day.”
Weird.
When I researched why, it turns out the soil herbs grow in can have a ton of heavy metals, and one of the last batches of “birth prep” that was tested had such high lead contamination, they now only recommend two tablets a day just in case that happens again.
Yikes!
I dropped that bottle like a rock, because too much lead in the body can put you at risk for miscarriage or preterm labor, and long-term damage can effect baby's brain, kidneys, and nervous system. Lead can also cause future learning or behavioral problems in children.
So yeah, not worth the risk.
You probably know by now, I love going down the rabbit holes. And I discovered an incredible amount of popular “organic” and “natural” prenatal vitamins full of the same toxic heavy metals!
In one batch of Garden of Life’s supplements—a brand certified USDA organic—a consumer wellness center lab found:
Lead intake from a SINGLE serving exceeded California Prop 65 limits for dietary supplements by 2,700%
Cadmium intake from a single serving exceeded the limits for dietary supplements by 1000%
Tungsten concentrations were so high they blew the lead concentration out of the water by almost 2,000%
This is one reason I’m so unwilling to go grab a bottle of herbs of the shelves of Natural Grocers.
At first glance it looks pure and earthy but “natural” can still be harmful. “Organic” can still be harmful. And the FDA and USDA allow virtually unlimited levels of heavy metals in supplements with labels that make us feel good about what we’re putting in our body.
What brings me peace of mind, is that Neolife is on top of this issue.
They test the purity of the soil. They test the water run off from other fields. They test for purity after a batch is harvested. They test for purity before a batch is manufactured. They test AFTER a batch is manufactured to make sure it still has all the potent components that were initially in the crop.
And each bottle has a batch number so that if you don’t have enough to do with your five children and side hustle and social schedule, you can track back to the exact records on every batch.
There is way too much research on this topic to overwhelm you with now, but here’s a little spark notes version on Neolife’s website, if you haven’t already checked it out.