Herbal medicine potential harm

Several adulterants added to nonherbal supplements, vitamins, and herbal medicine preparations can cause renal dysfunction and renal failure. Aristolochic acid is used as a herbal remedy for weight loss and has been reported to cause Chinese herb nephropathy characterized by extensive interstitial fibrosis with tubular atrophy and loss. Herbal medicine preparations produced in South Asia contain potentially harmful levels of lead, mercury, and/or arsenic which can lead to renal toxicity. 

Herbal drugs have many unknown and undocumented risks, side effects, and drug interactions. Like contemporary, rigorously tested pharmaceuticals, herbal medicines have some risk associated with their consumption. The fact that a plant is completely natural does not necessarily make that plant entirely risk-free. Several plants, when consumed in their most natural form, can cause grave illness or even death to humans and animals. A partial list of some of these natural herbal agents with the potential to harm is listed in Table 2. Herbalists, scientists, and the general public routinely avoid many of the plants listed in Table 2 because of their impending risks. However, hundreds of additional herbs and alternative medicines... 

Chan, T. 1994. The prevalence use and harmful potential of some Chinese herbal medicines in babies and children. Vet. Hum. Toxicol. 36, 238-240. 

Practitioners of herbal medicine have long held that the consumption of cucumbers induces copious urination, which may be helpful in ridding the body of excessive water and purging the blood of potentially harmful substances such as uric acid. However, pickles would be more likely to induce retention of water in the body by virtue of their high sodium content. NOTE The authors make no claim regarding the veracity of these beliefs. Rather, they are presented here to stimulate further research on the subject. 

---