44G-12 |
Potentially life-threatening herbs: Reported cases in the medical literature of cardiotoxicity, liver toxicity, kidney failure, cancer, and death. |
A. C. BROWN and A. S. Huang. Dept. of Human Nutrition, Food & Animal Sciences, Univ. of Hawaii, Manoa, 1955 East West Rd., Rm. 216, Honolulu, HI 96822 Currently, no list of potentially life-threatening herbs exists to forewarn consumers taking herbs, physicians treating patients with herbal side-effects, and companies developing herb-based products. The objective of this research was to create a list of potentially life-threatening herbs by rating the most serious side-effects of herb consumption reported in the literature, and to list herbs causing these rated conditions - cardiotoxicity, liver toxicity, kidney failure, cancer, and death. A rating system was developed to rank potentially life-threatening conditions from herbs appearing more than five times in a MEDLINE search of the literature. Conditions such as allergies and dermatitis appearing more than five times, but not meeting the "life-threatening" criterion, were excluded. Documented reports (2 or more) of herbs causing these conditions were then used to create a "Potentially Life-Threatening Herb List." Herbs ranked in the top five categories having potentially life-threatening side-effects include, but are not limited to: Cardiotoxic - chuanwu, caowu, foxglove, licorice, lily of the valley, lobelia, ma huang, squill, and yellow oleander; Liver toxicity - comfrey, germander, groundsel, gordolobo, jin buttuan (JBH), liferoot, mistletoe, pennyroyal, senna, skullcap, tung shueh pills, and valarian; Carcinogenic - borage, calamus, celandine, coltsfoot, comfrey, liferoot, madder root, and sassafras; and documented Deaths - germander, lobelia, ma huang (ephedra), and yohimba. This is the first time that a "Potentially Life-Threatening Herb List" has been created to alert consumers taking herbs, provide physicians with information on herbs that might be causing serious, unexplained side-effects in their patients, and to forewarn companies with herbs in their products that may seriously hurt their customers and/or their annual reports.
Session 44G, Toxicology & Safety Evaluation
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