Context: Consumption of khat leaves has been disseminated worldwide with the migration of its users from Arabia and Africa. Despite numerous reports regarding the associations of khat chewing with serious health impacts, a significant number of people worldwide uses khat daily, especially in its origin countries. The risk of co-administration of khat and drugs (prescription and over the-counter medications) is high among these individuals, leading to increase probability of adverse khat-drug interactions. The likelihood of khat-drug interactions could be higher than drug-drug interactions because drugs usually contain single chemical entities while almost all herbs (including khat) contain mixtures of pharmacologically active constituents. Aims: To review the literatures on how khat interacts with some drugs and whether it is favorable or not. Methods: The study was conducted as a systematic review. The electronic literature searches were made in Google search engine to access publications from databases like PubMed, Google Scholar, and Cochrane using the keywords ‘khat’, ‘Catha edulis’ in combination with the terms ‘drug interaction’, ‘adverse-effects’, ‘side effects’, ‘adverse drug reaction’, ‘safety’, and ‘toxicity’ to identify relevant articles. Results: A total of 250 articles was identified, and these articles were checked in terms of title, abstract, and content according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. Finally, 18 articles were included in the study. The khat use significantly interact with most drugs and may cause unpredictable pharmacological sequences. Conclusions: Healthcare providers suggest patients` khat abstinence during medication process. Future studies need to investigate the khat- clinical drugs interactions especially with chronic used drugs.
Background: Despite its detrimental effects on health, chewing khat appears to be becoming more commonplace globally as a daily habit, particularly in the nations where it originated. As a result, it is very possible that khat users will take drugs while they chew the drug. That is high among them, increasing the likelihood of harmful khat-drug interactions. In these situations, it is critical to assess the impact of simultaneous khat and clinical medication delivery.Objective: As a preliminary study to evaluate the effect of khat (Catha edulis Forsk) chewing on serum Random Blood Sugar (RBG) level in Type 2 Diabetic Mellitus (T2DM) patients treated with metformin.Material and Method: Seventy-six male participants between the ages of 25 and 70 were included in the trial, 38 of them were already metformin-treated T2DM patients with a prior diagnosis. The remaining 38 people had no family history of diabetes, were healthy, and were not diabetic. Whether the individuals in the aforementioned two groups regularly chewed khat or not was used as a supplementary criterion for division. Using a drop of blood taken from each patient, a calibrated glucometer was used to take three readings of RBG levels.Results: The findings showed that healthy persons (non-khat chewers) had RBG levels at 4 hours after lunch that were significantly different from their corresponding values at 2 hours earlier. Using an independent sample t-test to compare the RBG levels of healthy khat chewers to healthy non-khat chewers, it was discovered that khat chewers had significantly higher RBG levels 3 and 4 hours after lunch (P = 0.042 and 0.000, respectively). RBG levels at 4 h after lunch (2 h after khat chewing) were significantly lower by -54.36 when compared to the level at 2 h after lunch of the same group of diabetic khat chewers taking metformin, whereas levels at 3 h after launch (1 h after khat chewing) were not statistically different.Conclusion: When khat was consumed, healthy volunteers' serum RBG levels went up, whereas diabetic patients receiving metformin saw no change in their RBG levels.
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