United States: Despite the fact that humans have relied on herbs and plants to treat specific diseases for thousands of years they have gained popularity maybe due to the fact that people from TikTok Trusted Source first shared the benefits of consuming herbal supplements like Ashwagandha, turmeric and green tea among others.
Despite having labels that they are naturally occurring products, herbal supplements are not safe and can reach the consumer without passing through the U.S. FDA Trusted Source. It is also important to keep in mind that people may experience side effects from the same herbal supplements also some of the herbs may interact with the drugs which the person is taking at the same time.
As reported by Medical News Today, new research published by the University of Michigan’s team shows that 15.6 million American adults, or 5% of the total, have ingested at least one hepatotoxic herbal supplement in the past month.
In this study, researchers looked at information from over 9500 US grown-ups with average age of 47.5 years and who participated in the NHANES Trusted Source between the years 2017 to 2020. Participant medical data included prescription medication and herbal supplement use among these participants.
“Those that might cause hepatotoxicity are products with botanical ingredients that have been suggested to be responsible for liver injury,” Likhitsup speaking to Medical News Today.
“It is still unclear how these products lead to liver damage, but Foodshare speculated that it happened through metabolism within the liver after the products were ingested.”
As practicing hepatologist and I have seen the patients who had liver injury from taking dietary supplements and some were fatal which is required emergency and the liver transplant and the Data from the Drug Induced Liver injury Network reported the rates of live injury due to botanical products has been on the rise from the 7 percent in the 2004-2005 to 20 percent in the year 2013-2014 and therefore I had interest to analyzed the prevalence and see how many Americans were consuming these products, “Likhitsup continued.
At the study conclusion, Likhitsup and her team found that about almost 58 percent of all the participants reported using an herbal or dietary supplement at least once within the 30 day period and about almost 5 percent of the participants said they had taken and at least one of the six potentially hepatotoxic botanicals in the past 30 days and when it applied to the whole US population this percentage translates to bout 15.6 million adults.