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, eight of them women, most taking turmeric for arthritis, pain or general health. Injury was hepatocellular in nine, five were hospitalised and one died of acute liver failure, with a median latency of 86 days (range 38 to 429). Seven of ten carried HLA-B*35:01 (allele frequency 0.450 against 0.056 to 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 phenotype and the genetic association, not the incidence. Product chemistry was confirmed for seven of ten, three of which contained piperine, with piperine on the label of one more. NIH-funded (DILIN). Read as the NIH author manuscript.