Presence of scopoletin in commercial crude drugs of Helichrysum italicum and Helichrysum stoechas (Asteraceae)

A phytochemical investigation was performed on the concentration of several coumarins and flavonoids present in dried plant materials of thirty two species of Asteraceae, which represent the most sold crude drugs in the Italian herbal market. Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of coumarins and flavonoids content was performed by High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) and UV detection. Because of their pattern of assumption (pharmaceutical preparations and health beverages), both the alcoholic and watery extracts of the drugs were analyzed. The results obtained from watery and alcoholic extracts were very similar; therefore, in this paper we refer only the data of the alcoholic extracts. The qualitative and quantitative distribution of flavonoids was more homogeneous than the one of coumarins. Since both coumarins and flavonoids are bioactive compounds with numerous pharmacological activities, it is important to ascertain their content in herbal preparations of broad use to avoid toxicity in humans.