Madison Burgess
A woman has claimed she almost died and was ‘one step from liver failure’ after taking a supplement that’s becoming increasingly popular.
57-year-old Katie Mohan, from the American state of New Jersey, started experiencing nausea, stomach pain and fatigue a few weeks after she began taking the pills.
She also noticed that her eyes were yellowing and her urine was considerably darker, but didn’t make the connection between her symptoms and the supplements at first.
Mohan first took a trip to the doctors in April, but all of her scans and tests came back as normal.
Advert
Her symptoms increasingly got worse and it was only in June when she read an article about the growing rates of liver damage from the herbal supplement, did she realise what was really going on.
The culprit was in fact turmeric pills, which Mohan had been taking daily after seeing a social media post about its benefits for inflammation and joint pain relief.
After reading the piece, she went to urgent care, where it was revealed that her liver enzyme levels were 60 times the normal limit.
The specific pills Mohan was taking, which were manufactured by YouTheory, at Costco, state their daily dose is three pills containing 2,250mg, reports The Independent and NJ.com.
The World Health Organisation’s recommendation for turmeric is up to 3 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day.
NBC News outlined that for a woman weighing 150 pounds, that would equate to around 200mg of turmeric daily - as opposed to the 2,250mg Mohan had been taking.
Dr. Nikolaos Pyrsopoulos, a hepatologist at NYU Langone, where Mohan had been taken, said: “It was very serious. Katie actually was one step before full liver damage, liver failure, requiring liver transplant.”
She was hospitalised for six days and was treated with an antiviral drip and thankfully, her liver was able to regenerate.
Speaking to the publication, she explained: “I just did not feel well generally. I also noticed that despite drinking a lot of water every day, that my urine was darker.
“A light bulb went off in my head and I said, Oh, my gosh! I wonder if this is what’s wrong with me.”
She said that Prsypolous confirmed what she was worried about - that the turmeric pills could be responsible.
Mohan said: “He’s like, you essentially poisoned the liver with the turmeric. It was the dose combined with the fact that it had that black pepper in it.”
She has now vowed to 'never put another supplement’ in her body ever again - and after that, we can’t say we blame her.
A study which was published last year in the JAMA Network Open claimed that turmeric is one of the most common herbal ingredients to be linked to toxic hepatitis in the US.
Meanwhile, Pryspolous also reportedly told NJ.com that while it’s still rare, his hospital sees three to four liver transplants per year that are related to turmeric poisoning.
Tyla has contacted Costco and YouTheory for comment.