The sanitary quality of vegetal drugs, as well as the use of decontamination methods are important steps towards the consumer safety, mainly due to the fact that these products are usually used by sick and with weak immunocompromised persons. In Brazil, the RDC 48/ 2004 mention the contamination research as well as the efficacy of the decontaminated product. The purpose of this work is to evaluate the effects of ethylene oxide fumigation and gamma irradiation on the microbial burden and some chemical constituents of ginkgo and guarana. The initial microbial burden was 3,2x10(6), on average, for total aerobic microorganisms and 3,0x10(5) for fungi. Both methods proved to be effective in the microbial burden reduction. The analyses using high performance liquid chromatography revealed the absence of significant alterations in the flavonol glycosides and caffein contents, respectively for ginkgo and guarana.
Vegetal drugs; Microbial quality; Ethylene oxide; Gama irradiation; Flavonol glycosides; Caffein
