A brief study of toxic effects of some medicinal herbs on kidney

Abstract

Increased use of complementary and alternative herbal medicines in the treatment of various diseases.Some herbal therapies may be causes of potential toxicity that may be renal toxicity caused by the ingestion of herbs. The goal of this study is the toxic and beneficial effects of medicinal herbs on renal health by which evidence for benefit or toxicity has been found. Included are nephrotoxicity from aristolochic acid and other components within herbs, herb-drug interactions, heavy metal toxicity in herbs and adulterants during careless preparation of herbal medicine, resulting in adverse renal effects and renal toxicity from contaminants within the extracts. The review aims to provide knowledge and guide to encourage future toxicity studies on the kidney by medicinal herbs.

Aristolochic Acid Induced Suicidal Erythrocyte Death

“…Aristolochic Acid, a nephrotoxin and carcinogen [1] from plants of the genus Aristolochia [2], may lead to acute kidney injury [3], renal aristolochic acid nephropathy [4][5][6][7][8][9][10], Balkan endemic nephropathy [1, 7-9, 11, 12], and urothelial carcinoma [1,2,4,[6][7][8][9][10][13][14][15]. Causes of Aristolochic Acid intoxication include long-term intake of medicinal herbs containing Aristolochic Acid [16][17][18][19] or of flour obtained from wheat contaminated with seeds of Aristolochia clematitis [16].…”

Vitis thunbergii supplementation demonstrates an anti-obesity effect in developing obese mice

“…The augmented liver injury was accompanied by fibrotic change, possibly through activation of ␣-SMA-positive matrixproducing cells. Herbs are generally thought safe in the past, but now there is growing evidence that they might cause adverse effects on health [31][32][33][34]. Because of their hundreds of chemical components, they have unpredictable levels of active ingredients and potentially harmful effects [35].…”

Systematic Review of Adverse Effects from Herbal Drugs Reported in Randomized Controlled Trials

“…Xuezhikang (an extract of red yeast rice) increased beyond the normal range of serum creatinine in a patient with coronary heart disease (Zhao et al ., ). Several groups have reported rare incidences of renal toxicity by this herbal drug (Shang et al ., ; Asif, ). Saffron (an extract of Crocus sativus Linn, 60 mg daily) induced decrease of blood cellular components (platelet, WBC, or RBC) in about 60% of subjects with idiopathic olicgoasthenoteratozoospermia (Safarinejad et al ., ).…”