Hindawi Publishing Corporation
Case Reports in Hepatology
Volume 2013, Article ID 965092, 4 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/965092
Case Report
Chinese Skullcap in Move Free Arthritis Supplement Causes
Drug Induced Liver Injury and Pulmonary Infiltrates
Renumathy Dhanasekaran,
1
Victoria Owens,
2
and William Sanchez
1
1
Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
2
Department of Pathology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
Correspondence should be addressed to William Sanchez; sanchez.william@mayo.edu
Received 28 January 2013; Accepted 19 March 2013
Academic Editors: G. H. Koek, H. H. Lin, and H. Nagahara
Copyright © 2013 Renumathy Dhanasekaran et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons
Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited.
Herbal medications are being increasingly used by the American population especially for common conditions like arthritis. Tey
have been reported to cause adverse efects, including signifcant hepatotoxicity, but reporting remains sporadic. We report here
a patient who developed drug induced liver injury following the intake of Move Free, which is an over-the-counter arthritis
supplement. We propose that Chinese skullcap, which is one of the herbal ingredients of the medication, is responsible for the
adverse event. Tere was a strong temporal association between the intake of supplement and onset of symptoms, and also there
have been a few recent case reports implicating the same component. A unique observation in our case is the occurrence of pulmo-
nary infltrates simultaneously with the hepatotoxicity, and this side efect has not been well documented before. Both the hepatic
and pulmonary complications completely resolved over few weeks afer the patient stopped taking the medication. Since these sup-
plements are readily available over the counter, we feel that it is important to document possible adverse outcomes to raise awareness
in the medical community and also among patients.
1. Introduction
More than a third of Americans use herbal medications for
various purported benefcial efects and most of them do not
disclose their use to physicians [1, 2]. Tese medications are
considered by patients to be safe as they are of natural origin.
Unfortunately they can cause serious adverse efects. Te
process of FDA regulation of these supplements is less rig-
orous than that for drugs, so their adverse efects are not well
documented. Nonetheless it is important to document cases
of serious adverse outcomes related to herbal supplements,
both to raise awareness and hopefully to prevent recurrence.
We report here a case of hepatotoxicity related to use of an
over-the-counter arthritis supplement.
2. Case Report
A 62-year-old Caucasian female with a history of diabetes
mellitus was hospitalized for acute onset of shortness of
breath. She was found to be hypoxic, and chest X-ray showed
bilateral interstitial infltrates. She was incidentally found to
have abnormal liver tests in the form of elevated aminotrans-
ferases and hyperbilirubinemia (Figure 1). Te patient did not
give a history of prior liver disease, did not drink alcohol,
and had no risk factors for acute viral hepatitis. Her most
recent previous liver tests (from 3 years ago) had been com-
pletely normal. Physical examination revealed jaundice but
no splenomegaly, asterixis, or other stigmata of chronic liver
disease. Te following tests were negative or normal on eva-
luation—viral hepatitis serologies, serologic markers of
autoimmune hepatitis, serology for Lyme disease, HIV, CMV,
and EBV serologies. Serum ceruloplasmin was normal, and
testing for alpha1 antitrypsin defciency was negative. Ultra-
sound of the abdomen demonstrated fatty infltration with no
evidence of portal hypertension and no evidence of biliary
ductal obstruction.
A detailed medication history was obtained to identify
potentially hepatotoxic medications. Te patient reported
using metformin at a stable dose on a daily basis for several
years. Two weeks prior to hospitalization, she had started