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Curcuma longa Hepatotoxicity: A Baseless Accusation. Cases Assessed for Causality Using RUCAM Method

Curcuma longa is a perennial herb that belongs to the Zingiberaceae family. To date, literature includes more than 11.000 scientific articles describing all its beneficial properties. In the last 3 decades various surveys by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concluded that curcumin, the mo...

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Autores principales: Stati, Gianmarco, Rossi, Francesco, Sancilio, Silvia, Basile, Mariangela, Di Pietro, Roberta
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8586077/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34776989
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2021.780330
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author Stati, Gianmarco
Rossi, Francesco
Sancilio, Silvia
Basile, Mariangela
Di Pietro, Roberta
author_facet Stati, Gianmarco
Rossi, Francesco
Sancilio, Silvia
Basile, Mariangela
Di Pietro, Roberta
author_sort Stati, Gianmarco
collection PubMed
description Curcuma longa is a perennial herb that belongs to the Zingiberaceae family. To date, literature includes more than 11.000 scientific articles describing all its beneficial properties. In the last 3 decades various surveys by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concluded that curcumin, the most active ingredient of the drug, is a “generally safe” compound with strong anti-oxidant effects. Curcuma longa was introduced in the daily diet by ayurvedic teachers due to its beneficial effects on health. Nonetheless, recently several reports, from the various global surveillance systems on the safety of plant products, pointed out cases of hepatotoxicity linked to consumption of food supplements containing powdered extract and preparations of Curcuma longa. The latest trend is the use of Curcuma longa as a weight-loss product in combination with piperine, which is used to increase its very low systemic bioavailability. Indeed, only 20 mg piperine, one of the alkaloids found in black pepper (Piper nigrum), assumed at the same time with 2 g curcumin increased 20-fold serum curcumin bioavailability. This combination of natural products is now present in several weight loss supplements containing Curcuma longa. The enhanced drug bioavailability caused by piperine is due to its potent inhibition of drug metabolism, being able to inhibit human P-glycoprotein and CYP3A4, while it interferes with UDP-glucose dehydrogenase and glucuronidation activities in liver. While only few cases of hepatotoxicity, assessed using Roussel Uclaf Causality Assessment Method (RUCAM) method, from prolonged intake of piperine and curcumin have been reported, it would be reasonable to speculate that the suspected toxicity of Curcuma longa could be due to the concomitant presence of piperine itself. Hence, not only there is the need of more basic research to understand the etiopathology of curcumin-related hepatotoxicity and of the combination curcumin-piperine, but human trials will be necessary to settle this dispute.
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spelling pubmed-85860772021-11-13 Curcuma longa Hepatotoxicity: A Baseless Accusation. Cases Assessed for Causality Using RUCAM Method Stati, Gianmarco Rossi, Francesco Sancilio, Silvia Basile, Mariangela Di Pietro, Roberta Front Pharmacol Pharmacology Curcuma longa is a perennial herb that belongs to the Zingiberaceae family. To date, literature includes more than 11.000 scientific articles describing all its beneficial properties. In the last 3 decades various surveys by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concluded that curcumin, the most active ingredient of the drug, is a “generally safe” compound with strong anti-oxidant effects. Curcuma longa was introduced in the daily diet by ayurvedic teachers due to its beneficial effects on health. Nonetheless, recently several reports, from the various global surveillance systems on the safety of plant products, pointed out cases of hepatotoxicity linked to consumption of food supplements containing powdered extract and preparations of Curcuma longa. The latest trend is the use of Curcuma longa as a weight-loss product in combination with piperine, which is used to increase its very low systemic bioavailability. Indeed, only 20 mg piperine, one of the alkaloids found in black pepper (Piper nigrum), assumed at the same time with 2 g curcumin increased 20-fold serum curcumin bioavailability. This combination of natural products is now present in several weight loss supplements containing Curcuma longa. The enhanced drug bioavailability caused by piperine is due to its potent inhibition of drug metabolism, being able to inhibit human P-glycoprotein and CYP3A4, while it interferes with UDP-glucose dehydrogenase and glucuronidation activities in liver. While only few cases of hepatotoxicity, assessed using Roussel Uclaf Causality Assessment Method (RUCAM) method, from prolonged intake of piperine and curcumin have been reported, it would be reasonable to speculate that the suspected toxicity of Curcuma longa could be due to the concomitant presence of piperine itself. Hence, not only there is the need of more basic research to understand the etiopathology of curcumin-related hepatotoxicity and of the combination curcumin-piperine, but human trials will be necessary to settle this dispute. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-10-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8586077/ /pubmed/34776989 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2021.780330 Text en Copyright © 2021 Stati, Rossi, Sancilio, Basile and Di Pietro. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Pharmacology
Stati, Gianmarco
Rossi, Francesco
Sancilio, Silvia
Basile, Mariangela
Di Pietro, Roberta
Curcuma longa Hepatotoxicity: A Baseless Accusation. Cases Assessed for Causality Using RUCAM Method
title Curcuma longa Hepatotoxicity: A Baseless Accusation. Cases Assessed for Causality Using RUCAM Method
title_full Curcuma longa Hepatotoxicity: A Baseless Accusation. Cases Assessed for Causality Using RUCAM Method
title_fullStr Curcuma longa Hepatotoxicity: A Baseless Accusation. Cases Assessed for Causality Using RUCAM Method
title_full_unstemmed Curcuma longa Hepatotoxicity: A Baseless Accusation. Cases Assessed for Causality Using RUCAM Method
title_short Curcuma longa Hepatotoxicity: A Baseless Accusation. Cases Assessed for Causality Using RUCAM Method
title_sort curcuma longa hepatotoxicity: a baseless accusation. cases assessed for causality using rucam method
topic Pharmacology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8586077/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34776989
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2021.780330
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