Dear Madam,
I am writing this letter with regards to the article “Docs caution of Liver damage linked to giloy” published in TOI (4th July 20121). Use of the word ‘Giloya’ in the title and article body is utter non-sense, and objectionable. Without complete investigation blaming a popular herb is bad journalism and unethical publishing. The doctors you have mentioned yet to publish or submit the report to the Pharmacovigilance dept. Moreover, Wei -Te Huang et.al. in their article “Literature review of liver injury induced by Tinospora crispa associated with two cases of acute fulminant hepatitis” published in complimentary therapy medicine journal clearly told the species Tinospora crispa (TCP) might have the negative effect of inducing hepatotoxicity.
So, retract this article and apologies unconditionally as it has great negative impact on more than 100 crore public who trusts Ayurveda and herbal medicine.
Literature review of liver injury induced by Tinospora crispa associated with two cases of acute fulminant hepatitis - PubMed (nih.gov)
Summary:
Introduction: Species of Tinospora are used as herbal remedies for the treatment of various diseases with very few toxic effects having been reported. Tinospora cordifolia (TCF) has been reported to effectively prevent hepatotoxicity. However, there are an increasing number of cases revealing that Tinospora crispa (TCP) might have the negative effect of inducing hepatotoxicity. Because of the similar leaves, people may mistake TCP for TCF, and consume it with the purpose of protecting liver function.
Objective: Find out the misusing level of TCP and TCF and which chemical compound in TCP might induce hepatotoxicity.
Methods: We report two cases of acute fulminant hepatitis associated with chronic use of TCP. Given that the two herbs were misidentified in these two reports, we investigated the frequency of erroneous identification by using three keywords ("Guduchi", "Tinospora cordifolia", "Tinospora crispa") to search images from the Google Images database. To further clarify the influence of liver function between TCP and TCF, we searched PubMed (up to 29 July 2018) for relevant publications on clinical trials or case reports.
Results: Based on web review, over 35 percent of websites failed to accurately identify these two herbs. The different effects on liver function between TCP and TCF were compared through literature review. It indicated that TCF exerted liver protection, TCP had a contrary effect, suggesting its cis-Clerodane-type furano-diterpenoids might be an important factor of inducing hepatotoxicity.
Conclusions: We concluded that people might cause hepatic injury or even death without correctly identifying these two Tinospora species.
Dr. (Prof.) Vasant Patil
M.D.(Jamnagar)
Executive Editor,
Journal of Ayurveda and holistic medicine (JAHM)
Consultant Ayurveda and Panchakarma Physician,
Atreya Ayurvedic Hospital & Panchakarma Centre, HUBLI