Supplemental income: new center to study herbs. (NIEHS News).

The two top-selling botanical dietary supplement ingredients, echinacea (Echinacea spp.) and St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum), will be the subjects of study at a new multidisciplinary research center to be established by the NIEHS and the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. The new center will be created through a five-year, $6 million grant, the NIEHS announced on 25 July 2002. The center will bring together more than 20 researchers from Iowa State University in Ames, the University of Iowa in Iowa City, and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge in fields including toxicology, pharmacology, epidemiology, and biochemistry. The center will be housed at Iowa State, and will be headed by Diane Birt, who is chair of that university's Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition.

The new NIEHS Center for Dietary Supplement Research joins the National Toxicology Program, a second NIEHS Center for Botanical Research at the University of Missouri, and four other NIH centers already working to establish a broad base of scientific knowledge on botanicals and to scientifically determine their effectiveness, safety, and chemical properties. State-of-the-art technology at Iowa State's Metabolomics Research Laboratory will assist researchers at the new center by determining the bioactive constituents of these plants. Studies will also look at genetic factors that influence bioactivity as well as farm environment conditions related to planting and harvesting that may affect the plants' production of bioactive compounds. Research into the relationship between plant genetics and bioactivity could also help identify related plants with useful medicinal and nutritive attributes, said Birt in a 24 July 2002 Iowa State press release announcing the center. University of Iowa scientists will perform epidemiological studies to determine the characteristics of human populations most likely to benefit or be harmed by using botanicals.

Echinacea, a member of the daisy family, was first used by Native Americans as a treatment for wounds, burns, and snakebites. Today it is used mainly to treat colds and influenza and is, according to some news sources, the best-selling herbal remedy in the United States, with annual sales of almost $80 million.

St. John's wort is a yellow-flowering perennial native to Europe and introduced by early colonists to North America, where it now grows wild. It has been used for centuries in folk medicine to treat headaches, rheumatism, malaria, wounds, and insect bites. Now it is found in treatments for depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders, and is widely prescribed in Europe as an antidepressant.

Since the late 1990s the National Toxicology Program has conducted safety studies on a number of plants and botanical compounds, including echinacea, Aloe vera gel, Ginkgo biloba, ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), and kava kava (Piper methysticum), with nominations for more studies still coming in. The program's work focuses closely on the potential for interaction between different botanicals and between botanicals and pharmaceuticals. Researchers are especially interested in possible effects on particularly vulnerable subpopulations including pregnant women, the very young, and the elderly.