Liver damage caused by herbal and dietary supplements

Herbal and Dietary Supplement Induced Liver Injury in the U.S.

NIH-funded research Thomas Jefferson University · NIH-11180470

This project enrolls people whose livers were harmed after taking herbal or dietary supplements to find the causes and improve how these injuries are detected and tracked.

Quick facts

Grant typeU01 cooperative agreement
Study typeNIH-funded research
Funding institutionThomas Jefferson University NIH-funded
Lab location1 site (Philadelphia, United States)
Project IDNIH-11180470 on NIH RePORTER

What this research studies

You can join if you had liver injury after taking a drug or a herbal/dietary supplement, whether it happened recently or in the past. The team collects your medical records, blood and other samples, and the actual supplement products you used, and stores them in a central repository. Partner labs (NCNPR, NTP, and the Botanical Safety Consortium) will chemically analyze products and run lab tests to look for harmful ingredients and possible injury mechanisms. Researchers will also try a new causality scoring tool (RECAM) and work to increase enrollment of people from under-represented groups.

Who could benefit from this research

Good fit: Ideal participants are people who have experienced liver injury suspected to be caused by an herbal or dietary supplement or a drug and who can provide medical records, samples, and implicated product(s).

Not a fit: People without a history of liver injury from supplements or drugs are unlikely to receive direct benefit from this project.

Why it matters

Potential benefit: If successful, this work could help identify dangerous supplement ingredients and improve diagnosis and prevention of supplement-related liver injury.

How similar studies have performed: Previous DILIN work has already identified many supplement-related liver injuries, and this effort builds on that experience by adding product chemical analysis and validation of a new causality tool.

Where this research is happening

Philadelphia, United States

Researchers

About this research

  1. This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
  2. Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
  3. For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.
Conditions Acute DiseaseChemical InjuryChronic Disease
Last reviewed 2026-06-13 by the Find a Trial editorial team. Information on this page is for educational purposes and is not medical advice. Always consult qualified healthcare professionals about clinical trial participation.