Role of Unprofessional Storage Methods on the Heavy Metal Content of Rosa Damascena (Gole Mohammadi)

As majority of people around the world rely on non-conventional medicine mainly of herbal sources for their primary healthcare nowadays, the quality of herbal medicine is one of the most important issues. The products may be contaminated with chemical toxins, excessive pesticides and heavy metals during the growth process with contaminated environment or during harvesting, storing conditions and transferring process to herbal market. Chemical toxins may come from wrong storage conditions or chemical treatment due to transferring to herbal market. The aims of this study were to: determination of the contents of Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Hg, Pb and Zn in Rosa Damascena available in Iranian market in comparison with these heavy metal contents in samples which is harvested from Kashan farms in order to find probable effect of transferring and storing process in contamination issue. The samples were analyzed by a Flame Emission Spectrophotometer and an automated continuous flow hydride vapor generation system was used for mercury. our results showed that the majority of medicinal plants (flowers) samples from markets had higher level of these heavy metals although these contents in samples which harvested from Kashan farms shows lower level of heavy metal contamination. It revealed that probably the transferring process and storing herbal plants are the main factors for contaminating.