Liver Injury Associated with Turmeric-A Growing Problem: Ten Cases from the Drug-Induced Liver Injury Network [DILIN]

Halegoua-DeMarzio D, Navarro V, Ahmad J, Avula B, Barnhart H, Barritt AS, Bonkovsky HL, Fontana RJ, Ghabril MS, Hoofnagle JH, Khan IA, Kleiner DE, Phillips E, Stolz A, Vuppalanchi R · The American Journal of Medicine

Ten cases, all enrolled since 2011 and six since 2017. Injury was hepatocellular in nine, five were hospitalised and one died of acute liver failure, with a latency of 1 to 4 months. Seven of ten carried HLA-B*35:01 (allele frequency 0.450 against 0.056-0.069 in population controls), two of them homozygous.

Population

Adjudicated turmeric-associated liver injury cases in the US DILIN registry, 2004-2022

Intervention

Turmeric-containing supplements (3 of 7 tested products also contained piperine)

Limitations

Ten cases over eighteen years against tens of millions of users, so this establishes the mechanism and the genetic association, not the incidence. Product chemistry was confirmed for seven of ten. NIH-funded (DILIN).