Liver injury associated with turmeric, 10 cases from the drug-induced liver injury

network in the United States.

And there are others, too, including three cases reported in Australia and a series reported

to the Italian Ministry of Health.

Is turmeric really a new hepatotoxic substance?

First of all, regardless of what the titles of the papers say,

these cases appear to be from turmeric extract supplements,

rather than turmeric the spice.

It's like green tea and green tea extract pills.

Rude green tea appears to be completely safe for the liver, but give people green tea extract

supplements and the livers of as many as one in 17 people becomes inflamed.

So we should consume our green tea in beverage form, not pill form, and similarly our

turmeric in spice form at culinary doses,

not capsules.

Unless they contain just a single ingredient, whole-spice turmeric, not curcumin, not an extract,

no other ingredients.

While turmeric extract supplements have a relatively safe side-effect profile, even at high doses,

there is an increasing number of case reports linking them to liver injury,

especially when combined with agents such as pippereen, a compound found in black pepper.

As we've covered before, compounds like pipporine are added to turmeric to enhance the bioavailability of curcumin,

potentially contributing to its toxicity.

As one reason curcumin may be so safe is that it is poorly absorbed.

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