Partnerships for Environmental Public Health (PEPH)

Botanical Safety

September 27, 2021

Interviewee: Cynthia Rider, Ph.D.

In this podcast, we’ll hear from Cynthia Rider, Ph.D., a toxicologist at the Division of the National Toxicology Program at NIEHS. Rider talks about what we know – and don’t know – when it comes to botanical safety, what she’s learned in the lab about how certain botanicals may affect health, and how consumers can make informed decisions about these products.

Botanical Safety

Nearly one in five U.S. adults take botanical dietary supplements, which are made from plants and often used for their medicinal properties. As sales of these products continue to grow, scientists and consumers have concerns about the lack of safety data and variable quality of products in the marketplace.

In this podcast, we’ll hear from Cynthia Rider, Ph.D., a toxicologist at the Division of the National Toxicology Program at NIEHS. Rider talks about what we know – and don’t know – when it comes to botanical safety, what she’s learned in the lab about how certain botanicals may affect health, and how consumers can make informed decisions about these products.

Interviewee

Cynthia Rider, Ph.D., is a toxicologist in the NIEHS Division of Translational Toxicology (DTT). She leads several NTP studies that evaluate the safety of botanicals, such as ginkgo biloga extract and garcina cambogia. She is particularly interested in developing and refining methods for evaluating the toxicity of mixtures – including botanicals – to inform risk assessment. Rider is a steering committee member of the Botanical Safety Consortium, a collaborative forum for botanical safety research.

Additional Resources

• Check out the following articles from the NIEHS Environmental Factor to learn more about how NTP scientists are advancing botanical safety research:
  • Botanical researchers aim to fill gap in safety testing
  • Botanical safety taken on by new consortium
• Check out the Herbs at a Glace fact sheet series from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health to learn more about a specific botanical.
• Read NTP’s botanical dietary supplements webpage and fact sheet (2MB) for more on the program’s ongoing and completed studies.
• Visit NIH Office of Dietary Supplements for a collection of resources and fact sheets about botanical supplements.