Drug-induced acute liver injury mimicking autoimmune hepatitis after intake of dietary supplements containing glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate.

INTRODUCTION: Herbal and dietary supplements are widely used as measures to improve and preserve health and well-being. Among the bestselling preparations are dietary supplement containing glucosamine and chondroitine sulfate taken to improve symptoms of osteoarthritis. METHODS AND RESULTS: We here present a case of a male patient with biopsy-proven acute and severe autoimmune hepatitis subsequent to intake of a preparation containing glucosamine and chondroitine sulfate. Response to steroids was favorable and resulted in complete remission of the patient. Diagnostic work-up of the case revealed no other possible cause of liver injury, and causality assessment using the Roussel Uclaf Causality Assessment Method (RUCAM) resulted in a possible causal relationship between intake of glucosamine and chondroitine sulfate and the adverse hepatic reaction. CONCLUSION: The present case recalls that products containing glucosamine and chondroitine sulfate can occasionally cause acute liver injury mimicking autoimmune hepatitis, and reminds of the potential dangers of compounds with poor efficacy and ill-defined safety records.

Review of liver injury associated with dietary supplements.

Dietary supplements (DS) are easily available and increasingly used, and adverse hepatic reactions have been reported following their intake. To critically review the literature on liver injury because of DSs, delineating patterns and mechanisms of injury and to increase the awareness towards this cause of acute and chronic liver damage. Studies and case reports on liver injury specifically because of DSs published between 1990 and 2010 were searched in the PubMed and EMBASE data bases using the terms 'dietary/nutritional supplements', 'adverse hepatic reactions', 'liver injury'; 'hepatitis', 'liver failure', 'vitamin A' and 'retinoids', and reviewed for yet unidentified publications. Significant liver injury was reported after intake of Herbalife and Hydroxycut products, tea extracts from Camellia sinensis, products containing usnic acid and high contents of vitamin A, anabolic steroids and others. No uniform pattern of hepatotoxicity has been identified and severity may range from asymptomatic elevations of serum liver enzymes to hepatic failure and death. Exact estimates on how frequent adverse hepatic reactions occur as a result of DSs cannot be provided. Liver injury from DSs mimicking other liver diseases is increasingly recognized. Measures to reduce risk include tighter regulation of their production and distribution and increased awareness of users and professionals of the potential risks.

Liver injury caused by drugs: an update.

Although severe idiosyncratic drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is a rare event, it has a large impact on the fate of affected patients and the incriminated drug. Hepatic metabolism of drugs, which occurs in the generation of chemically reactive metabolites in critical amounts, seems to underlie most instances of DILI. Genetic polymorphisms in activating and detoxifying enzymes determine, in part, the extent of cellular stress. A cascade of events, where the pathogenetic relevance of single steps is likely to vary from drug to drug, leads to the disturbance of cellular homeostasis, to mitochondrial dysfunction, to the activation of cell death promoting pathways and the release of drug-modified macromolecules and/or danger signals that initiate an innate and/or adaptive immune response. The patient's response to the initial drug-induced cellular dysfunction determines whether adaptation to the drug-induced cellular stress or DILI in one of its many forms of clinical presentation occurs. Although risk factors for developing DILI have been identified and many pathogenetic mechanisms have been elucidated in model systems, idiosyncratic drug reactions remain unpredictable.