Investigation of adverse effects of interactions between herbal drugs and natural blood clotting mechanism

Throughout the world, herbal medicines are consumed by most of the patients without considering their adverse effects. Many herbal medicines/plant extracts have been reported to interact with the natural blood clotting system. In continuation to this effort, thirty medicinal plant extracts were allowed to interact with citrated human blood and the clotting time was measured after re-calcification in vitro using Lee and White method. The aq. leaf ext. of Syzygium cumini and Camellia sinensis significantly prolonged the clotting time. In response to the prothrombin time and activated partial thromboplastin time tests, the ext. of C. sinensis showed normal APTT and marginally prolonged the PT to 16.7 s (control—15.2 s) while S. cumini showed normal PT but significantly prolonged the APTT to 66.9 s (control—20.7 s). This suggests that, C. sinensis acts on the extrinsic pathway while S. cumini on the intrinsic pathway. There are some common herbal formulations that are frequently used by the patients which contain above plant materials, like, Syzygium cumin in anti-diabetic formulations, while the ext. of C. sinensis is consumed frequently as beverage in many part of the world. Hence, patients having known bleeding tendency or haemophilia disease should take into account the interaction potential of these plants with the natural blood clotting system while taking herbal formulations containing above plants; specially, the patients suffering from intrinsic pathway factor deficiency should keep a limit on the consumption of S. cumini while extrinsic pathway factor deficiency patients should limit C. sinensis. Also, the medical practitioners should consider the patient’s food consumption history before doing any major surgical procedures.