Abstract
The renewed significant interest in medicinal plants which hold an extensive therapeutic history
has resulted in the need for the assessment of their quality using modern and sophisticated methods
of their processing and usage. Therefore, quality assurance and control is of high priority to warrant
the efficacy and consistency of herbal products. One of the challenges experienced by herbal
products arises due to a lack of complete evaluation and with the use of herbal remedies on the
rise; this then raises a question of quality within the manufactured capsules and evidence of the
clinical efficacy of the remedies (Soni et al., 2010). In order to assess the differences in quality
between the different manufacturers found on the South African market – nine samples of herbal
capsules and tablets containing Withania somnifera as a single or polyherbal formulation from
seven different companies were sourced off the shelves from pharmacies and health shops. The
samples were chosen based on high-ranking sales in the market, high consumer demand and
industry popularity. The mass of each of the samples from each group weighed and compared to
the mass of each capsule as stipulated on the packaging. The colours were examined with the naked
eye and recorded. The powders were dissolved in the reagent for at least 72 hours. An Agilent
Technologies Cary 60 UV-Visible double beam spectrophotometer with matched quartz cells was
used for absorbance measurements. A gas chromatograph which is hyphenated to a mass
spectrometer was used for analysis of the Withania somnifera containing formulations. It may be...