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Dietary supplements are estimated to be used regularly by almost 60% of the American population, and over 300 million people worldwide. An important and ever-growing portion of this market is in botanical supplements that are derived from natural plants. Natural, however, does not necessarily mean safe, and although plants can provide health-essential and health-improving nutrients they can also provide toxic compounds. While the use and sales of botanical supplements continues to expand rapidly, scientific understanding of the efficacy and safety of these products remains limited. The aim of Dietary Supplements of Plant Origin is to give both the general and specialized reader a comprehensive insight into the most recent findings in this interesting area of dietary supplementation. It is hoped that this book will shed a new light on this topic and impact positively upon the health of people in this new millennium.

Contemporary legislation respecting environmental protection and public health, at both national and international levels, are based on data that characterize chemical properties of environmental phenomena, especially those that reside in our food chain. Thus, environmental and food quality are now matters of major public concern and therefore a system of metrology in trace analysis has recently been developed at the international level. This new edition of a bestseller highlights the significance of anthropogenic factors in changing the trace element status in soils and plants. Written by Dr. Alina Kabata-Pendias, a world-renowned plant and soil scientist, Trace Elements in Soil and Plants, Third Edition incorporates recent data from about 400 respected sources. These data present the most recent research on topical issues such as the assessment of natural/background content of trace elements in soil; bioindication of chemical status of environmental compartments; soil remediation; and hyperaccumulation and hyperextraction of trace metals from the soil. Discussions of the health-related significance of trace elements in food are also included. This third edition presents an overview of the principal pathways from soils to plants. The author provides the background for a more profound understanding of ways by which chemical processes operate in both polluted and unpolluted conditions of the soil-plant system. The current review of recent soil-plant findings offered by Trace Elements in Soil and Plants, Third Edition renders the book an indispensable reference.