Abstract:
The people in Thailand have been used traditional hematinic drugs for long time. However, there were no scientific evidence to prove that these traditional hematinic drugs contain sufficient essential nutrients, iron and folic acid, for red blood cell formation in human. These studies were conducted to determine iron and folic acid contents in traditional hematinic drugs and hematinic herbal medicines by atomic absorption spectrophotometry and microbiological assay using Lactobacillus acsei ATCC 7469 as an assay organism, respectively. The studies were performed on 19 samples of traditional hematinic drugs and 30 samples of hematinic herbal medicines. The iron and folic acid contents in all samples studies were low. When calculated as a daily consumption of these drugs, it was found that daily consumption of these drugs would supply iron only 0.10-10.31 mg and folic acid 0.31-9.32 ug, which were not sufficient for human daily requirement. Accordingly, traditional hematinic drugs are not good sources for iron and folic acid.