Mediterranean plants-based dietary supplements: focus on classification and coding.
Perelli G, Cardarelli M, Bernini R, Lucarini M, Durazzo A.
Medicinal Plants
Many of the herbs growing wild around the Mediterranean basin—plants you might recognize from an Italian hillside walk or a Greek kitchen garden—are quietly ending up in supplement capsules, and this research pushes to make sure what's on the label actually matches what's inside.
The Mediterranean region has a long tradition of using wild plants as medicine, and today those same plants show up in health supplements sold in stores. The problem is that different countries describe and label these supplements in different ways, making it hard to compare products or trust what you're buying. This study created a standardized code for 150 supplements so that scientists, doctors, and shoppers can all speak the same language when it comes to plant-based health products.
Key Findings
150 Mediterranean plant-derived dietary supplements were coded using two international classification systems (LanguaL™ and FoodEx2) to standardize labeling.
Mediterranean medicinal plants are rich in three major classes of bioactive compounds—alkaloids, polyphenols, and terpenes—each linked to different therapeutic effects.
The work directly updates the Italian Dietary Supplement Label Database, improving data interoperability for manufacturers, health professionals, and consumers.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Researchers catalogued 150 dietary supplements made from Mediterranean medicinal plants—like those containing polyphenols, alkaloids, and terpenes—using two international food-coding systems to make supplement labeling more consistent and trustworthy across Europe.
Abstract Preview
The Mediterranean regions are rich in medicinal plants used for centuries for treatment of certain diseases and promoting human health. These plants, thriving in the region's favourable climate, ar...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
Was this useful?
Want to tell us more? (optional)
Thanks for the note!
Something went wrong — please try again.
Too many submissions. Try again in an hour.
Ancient DNA Reveals Pre-Columbian Amazonian Forest Management at Scale
Forests and fruits we romanticize as wild — including many plants now in our kitchens and gardens — may exist in their current abundance precisely because an...