A 45-year-old woman who was rushed to the emergency room after complaining of abdominal pains was surprised to learn that the herbal tea she had been drinking was what ailed her. Doctors found that the herbal tea had damaged her liver. Her condition improved days after she ceased taking the tea.
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Rare cause of liver disease
In a report published in the January edition of the Cureus Journal of Medical Science, medics who attended to the unnamed woman said she had come to the hospital complaining of ‘severe’ pain in her abdomen as well as nausea. After running a series of blood tests, it was detected that her liver was getting damaged and the culprit was a herbal tea supplement containing aloe vera that the patient was taking to ‘improve immunity’, according to the report.
Inpatient evaluation revealed acute liver injury with negative viral or immunologic tests. Additionally, imaging did not elicit a clear cause for the patient’s symptoms.
The American-based doctors added that although marketed as an immune booster, some herbal teas are a ‘likely but rare cause of clinically apparent liver injury’.
Unregulated
According to the authors of this report, unlike medications, herbal ingredients are not strictly regulated, resulting in limited research on their side effects. The tea that the woman in the report took contained aloe vera which has been linked to numerous cases of liver toxicity since 2005.
In an article on the Insider, it was stated that this toxicity can cause symptoms such as yellow skin and abdominal pain. In the woman’s case, her condition improved after she stopped drinking the tea. Her blood works also came back negative three months later. The report concluded:
It is imperative for clinicians to familiarize themselves with herbal supplements to better inquire patients about their use and educate them on potential side effects.
Sources used:
Cureus: Herbal Supplement-Induced Liver Injury: A Case Report
Insider: A woman went to the ER with 'severe' abdominal pain and discovered herbal tea had damaged her liver
