Food Safety Evaluation of Dendrobium huoshanense Stems

To evaluate the food safety of Dendrobium huoshanense, this article studied Dendrobium huoshanense stems through the acute oral toxicity test, the genotoxicity test, the 90-day feeding test and the teratogenicity test. The acute oral toxicity test showed that the maximum tolerable dose of DHS in both male and female mice was more than 15.0 g/kg·bw.The genotoxicity test suggested that DHS not only had no significant on strains of Salmonella typhimurium TA97, TA98, TA100 and TA102 in Ames test, but also had no significant effect on micronucleus rate changes, polychromatic erythrocyte (PCE)/normochromatic erythrocyte (NCE) ratios of mouse bone marrow cells, and mouse sperm abnormality rates. In the 90-day feeding test, no statistically significant difference was found in rats between the control and the DHS groups not only in body weight, body weight gain, food intake, food utilization rate, the absolute weight of major organs, organ-to-body weight ratio but also in hematological parameters, serum biochemical indexes, histopathological examination. The teratogenicity test found that DHS had no adverse effect on the body weight gain of pregnant rats, the early development of embryos as well as the development, skeletons, viscera and appearances of fetuses and all the indexes showed no significant difference. In conclusion, DHS would be safe in the dose of 5 g/kg·bw.