Mehri Aliasgharpour - Member of Biochemistry Laboratory Faculty, Reference Health ‎Laboratory, Iran Ministry of Health & Medical Education, Tehran, Iran

Introduction: Dietary supplements (DS) are  preparations  intended  to deliver nutrients  that  may not ‎be consumed in sufficient quantities in the diet. They improve health  and are popular in different ‎populations and age groups. Nevertheless, this popularity and most of the time using them   without ‎health professional advice expose consumers to the ingestion of different harmful contaminants that ‎may lead to deleterious effects on human health. ‎ Methods: A comprehensive literature search was performed during years ۱۹۹۴-۲۰۲۰. Many medical and ‎scientific literatures on the authors opinion regarding presence of metal contaminants in DS and the ‎analytical methods were collected.   Results: In different categories of DS metal contamination might occur as a consequence of a single ‎factor or as a combination of sources. For determination purposes many analytical techniques have been ‎developed. However, selection of a technique    depends on the elements, concentration in the digested ‎sample, detection limits, interference, accuracy, precision, linear range, and etc. ‎ Conclusion: Various authors emphasized  on applying  proper  quality control    in different ‎steps of dietary supplements production and  quality assurance  of all manufacturing phases  to ‎ensures that packaging materials and final products conform to  the established criteria’s of the ‎country.  It is  hoped   besides proper  quality control and use of    reference materials   as a critical  ‎step , the   knowledge of consumers  toward the use of DS  be increased by  holding  health care ‎communication  programs and  these products  consumed under medical advice.‎

Dietary supplements, Contaminants, Accuracy, Precision, Quality Assurance, ‎Reference Material