Heavy Metal Accumulation in Sea Buckthorn Cultivars in Siberia*

L., Elaeagnaceae) is a source of raw materials for nutraceutical, cosmeceutical, pharmaceutical, and veteri-nary applications. The berries, leaves, cork, and roots of sea buckthorn are highly appreciated for the rich content of vitamins, carotenoides, flavonoids, steroids, minerals, enzymes, amino acids, essential oils, essen-tial fatty acids, and serotonin. These constituents, separately or combined, may have unique health-support-ing or healing properties Sea buckthorn oil is one of the most frequently prescribed phytomedicines by Russian and Chinese phy-sicians for a plethora of ailments, including stomach ulcers, burns, hemorrhoids, and as an ingredient for skin and hair care products. In traditional Siberian medicine, the seed oil and leaf extracts of sea buckthorn are frequently used to maintain eye sight, hearing ability, fight off cataracts, cure exzema, improve physical per-formance, and ward off winter depression. Dozens of sea buckthorn cultivars were developed for their agro-nomic traits, chemical composition, and adaptation to poor dry and sandy soils, higher altitudes, wasted lands, and extremely cold areas in Russia. Each cultivar is known to have its own unique morphological traits, color, flavor, carotenoids, oil composition (mostly unsaturated essential fatty acids), and vitamin content (Yao and Tigerstedt 1992; Letchamo and Lobatcheva 1997; Lobatcheva et al. 2002). The level of heavy metal concentration in sea buckthorn is a matter of health, as well as an importan