I love wellness, to be pampered, massaged and oiled.

But I like my alternative medicine unleaded please.

New Scientist: Ayurvedic medicines laden with toxic heavy metals

Do Ayurvedic medicines cure or cause harm? That’s the question raised by a study showing that 21% of 193 traditional Indian Ayurvedic medicines bought on the internet from US or Indian sources contained high amounts of lead, mercury or arsenic.

One sample of a preparation called Ekangvir Ras had 26,000 parts per million of lead. This compares with a US legal limit of 2 ppm in pharmaceutically produced calcium tablets for the elderly.

In a subset of preparations called Rasa Shastra medicines, minerals with heavy metals are deliberately added. “Ayurvedic practitioners think that if these are mixed properly, they are non-toxic, but that conflicts head-on with conventional scientific thinking,” says Robert Saper of Boston University School of Medicine.