Abstract—COVID-19 is a serious pandemic since spring 2020. Numbers of traditional herbal medicines have been applied to conquer the virus. Here, we underline the potential risk of using the herbal medicines, by reviewing the chemical properties and toxicology of carcinogenicity chemical entities, e.g. aristolochic acids, glycyrrhizinic acid, in the herbal remedies. We stress here that although traditional herbal remedies are beneficial to relieve the COVID-19 symptoms, they should not be considered as preventive medicine or overdosing.

Index Terms—Aristolochic acids, COVID-19, chrysophanol, ephedrine, glycyrrhizic acid, TCM.

Rui Zhao is with Capital Normal University, Beijing, China.

Cite:Rui Zhao, "Risk of Using Traditional Herbal Medicine against COVID-19," International Journal of Bioscience, Biochemistry and Bioinformatics vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 14-21, 2022.

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