Shafqna Health:Although herbs and plants have been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years, they have recently become very popular thanks in part to posts on the social media platform where users tout the benefits of taking herbal supplements like ashwagandha, turmeric, and green tea.
While herbal supplements may be considered “natural,” they are not inherently safe and don’t require review or approval by the U.S. before going to market. Additionally, people can experience side effects with herbal supplements and certain herbs can interfere with medications they are currently taking.
Now, a new study from researchers at the University of Michigan reports that an estimated 15.6 million U.S. adults — or 5% — have taken at least one herbal supplement in the last 30 days that might be damaging to their liver, or hepatotoxic.
The study was recently published in the journal JAMA Network.
For this study, researchers analyzed data from more than 9,500 U.S. adults with an average age of 47.5 who took part in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)Trusted Source years 2017 to 2020. Medical data on these participants included prescription drug and herbal supplement use.
Scientists focused on study participant use of six herbal supplements considered from past research to be potentially.
“Potentially hepatotoxic botanical products are the products that contain plant-based ingredients which have been implicated as potential causes of liver damage,” Alisa Likhitsup, MD, MPH, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University of Michigan and lead author of this study explained to Medical News Today.
“How these products cause liver damage is not yet known but it is likely due to metabolism that occurs in the liver after the products were consumed,” she said.
“As a practicing hepatologist, I have seen patients who had liver injury from taking dietary supplements and some were fatal which required emergency liver transplant. Data from Drug Induced Liver Injury Network reported the rates of liver injury due to botanical products has been on the rise from 7% in 2004-2005 to 20% in 2013-2014. Therefore, I had (an) interest to analyze the prevalence and see how many Americans were consuming these products,” Likhitsup continued.
15.6 million adults use a potentially liver-damaging herb
At the study’s conclusion, Likhitsup and her team found that about 58% of all participants reported using an herbal or dietary supplement at least once within the 30-day period.
About 5% of participants said they had taken at least one of the six potentially hepatotoxic botanicals in the past 30 days. When applied to the whole U.S. population, this percentage translates to about 15.6 million adults.
This potentially hepatotoxic botanical use, researchers say, is similar to the estimated number of people prescribed potentially hepatotoxic drugs such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) and a drug used to lower bad cholesterol levels called simvastatinTrusted Source.
“We hope our results will increase awareness among patients and providers about these potentially liver toxic ingredients being consumed regularly among Americans and the dietary supplement products available in the market are not strictly regulated,” Likhitsup said.