Yet another reason to avoid spurious herbal tonics. An informatics approach to toxic epidemiology has revealed that aristolochic acid (AA) causes kidney failure and upper urinary tract cancer (UUC) in individuals exposed to the toxin. AA is found in species that have been used in herbal medicine for centuries. Who says natural is all good?
Details of how the research began in Belgium and reached Taiwan by way of The Balkans in this week’s SpectroscopyNOW.