13/07/2025
This is why you should never take herbal medicine long term without supervision. And when you buy non Australian supplements online (without TGA approval) there are risks as well.
There are a multiplicity of reasons why Tumeric or curcumin ( the active ingredient) causes issues in the gut long term. There are safer alternatives as natural anti-inflammatories.
Katie Mohan started taking daily turmeric pills in March after seeing a doctor on Instagram tout its benefits for inflammation and joint pain relief. A few weeks later, the 57-year-old started having stomach pain, nausea and fatigue.
“I just did not feel well generally,” she said. “I also noticed that despite drinking a lot of water every day, that my urine was darker.”
Mohan didn’t link her symptoms to the herbal pills until she saw an NBC News report in May about rising liver damage from supplements. She recognized her symptoms in a patient taking the same high dose of turmeric.
Within a week, Mohan went to urgent care, where tests showed her liver enzymes were 70 times the normal level.
“It was very serious,” said Dr. Nikolaos Pyrsopoulos, a hepatologist at NYU. “Katie actually was one step before full liver damage, liver failure, requiring liver transplant.”
Read more: nbcnews.app.link/1XLH8YZERUb
