Comment · Mon, December 7, 2020 · ND Owner
Heavy Metals
Original post in this thread
vvienna · 9 points
Just curious if ND tests more metals than shown in the spec sheet that is with each product on the website? For instance the sheets show numbers for 4 metals tested under the Heavy Metal section but something like aluminium is not there and I wonder if it is tested?
What they were answering
Direct reply to the original post — see the thread post above.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
Nobody tests for every single metal out there, unless there is a compelling reason to. Most are just not present in most things, so there is no reason to run panels for them. We have run analyses for other metals, like iron and aluminum, in specific instances. We did it out of curiosity on Primavie.
We have done chromium and iron testing on adrafinil, to try and solve some questions about why it can be white/pink in some instances. However, all those other metals are not commonly found in things, nor are they really toxic at low enough levels to warrant testing on every batch. It would be like testing for volatile solvents on something that doesn't use solvents in the production process. It's just a wasted test. To properly quantify things like metals, you need to run ICP-MS with qualified reference standards. This means to test all these metals, you need to use expensive reference standards each time you test for them. This is a lot of wasted money for things that just don't contain any of these metals.
In the case of aluminum specifically, it's oral bioavailability is low. It's in the range of 0.1–0.4%. You'd have to consume a lot of aluminum for it to be a problem, and those amounts are just not in things. Let's say you have 10ppm aluminum in a botanical extract you are taking. Let's say you are taking a gram of it. That means there is 0.01mg of aluminum in a dose. If we assume the top level bioavailability of 0.4%, you are getting 0.00004mg of aluminum per dose, or 0.04 MICROGRAMS. It's irrelevant at that amount. The NOAEL (no-observed-adverse-effect level) of aluminum in humans is 26 mg/kg/day. That would be 1.95 grams for an average 75kg human. The MRL (minimal risk level) for long-term toxicity in humans is 1mg/kg/day, which would be 75mg per day for an average person. It's practically irrelevant.