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My patients often ask me whether they can take herbal supplements to help their liver or kidneys. I must say that I am increasingly becoming skeptical of the quality of the supplements. A group of Canadian researchers had recently found that many herbal supplements do not contain any of the plants that they are supposed to.
Worse still, in some circumstances, some people develop severe liver failure requiring transplant. There has been a spike in reports of liver failure caused by supplements. Some of the cases were caused by high-dose green tea extracts for weight loss, and others from undeclared steroids in the supplements.
In Singapore, the Health Science Authority had banned a few supplements that damaged livers: kava-kava from Germany/Switzerland, OxyElite Pro from America, and black cohosh supplements.
Adulterated pills from ‘traditional medicine’ herbs had been found to be adulterated with corticosteroids resulting in Cushing’s Syndrome: weight gain, decreased immunity and other side effects. Indeed similar ingredients had been found with Malay traditional treatment as well (Pili Ajaib).
I would therefore advise staying away from most of these supplements until the regulations are changed to proactively monitor them.
drdanielwai 