The consumption of popular Chinese herbal products containing aristolochic acid is associated with an increased risk of urinary tract cancer, a Taiwanese study has found.
Aristolochic acid, known as mutong (木通) in Chinese, is found naturally in some herbs used to treat hepatitis, urinary tract infection, rhinitis, dysmenorrhea and eczema.
While studies in the past have linked urothelial cancer to the use of aristolochic acid, this was the first study to see if the same association could be made between cancer and herbal products containing aristolochic acid.
The Taiwanese researchers analyzed the medical history of 4,594 patients with urinary tract cancer and compared the findings with those of 174,701 people without the disease.
In a paper published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the researchers said those who consumed mutong had a far higher risk of developing urinary tract cancer, and that higher doses added to the risk.
Led by Wang Jung-der (王榮德) at the Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at National Taiwan University, the researchers called for a ban on products containing mutong.
“In addition to a ban on products that contain any amount of aristolochic acid, we also recommend continued surveillance of herbs or Chinese herbal products that might be adulterated with aristolochic acid-containing herbs,” they wrote.
“Finally, patients with a history of aristolochic acid nephropathy or consumption of mutong or fangchi [fangji, 防己] before they were banned should be monitored regularly for urinary cancer,” they wrote.
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