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Larrea: Chaparral hepatotoxicity by Paul Bergner Medical Herbalism 7(1-2):25 A new
case of liver disease following
long term use of chaparral has been published in
the Journal of the
American Medical Association. Several cases in
the early 1990s had
sparked voluntary removal of chaparral from
store shelves by herbal
manufacturers. In the current case, a 60 year
old woman took 1-2 caps
of chaparral a day for ten months. She developed
hepatitis, and no
other cause than the chaparral ingestion could
be discovered. She
required a liver transplant. No specific
mechanism of hepatotoxicity
has been discovered for chaparral, and the
adverse reactions are
probably idiosyncratic for particular patients.
It seems prudent to
monitor liver enzymes for patients taking
chaparral long term, or to
avoid long term use (30 days) altogether.
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