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Chaparral: The low-growing shrub known as chaparral or creosote bush (Larrea tridentata) is commonly found in the southwestern deserts of the United States and northern Mexico. Products made from chaparral leaves have been included in capsulated products, tinctures, and other forms for more than twenty years. During this period, people consumed hundreds of tons of chaparral with no known reports of toxicity until recently.

Chaparral first achieved its fame as a cancer folk remedy among Mormon populations in the Southwest. The claims of its effectiveness persuaded Tom Murdock, founder of one of the largest herb product companies in the United States—Murdock Madaus Schwabe, manufacturers of the Nature’s Way line—to turn to chaparral as a cancer treatment for his gravely ill wife, Lalovi. Conventional treatment had left the couple with little hope, but Murdock was determined not to sit idle. He found a chaparral bush, harvested some leaves, and prepared them for his wife; his wife recovered completely after the treatment and subsequently lived for more than twenty years. As news of the cure spread, Murdock, responding to the demand for chaparral products, in 1969 founded Nature’s Way Research Laboratories in Phoenix, Arizona, specifically to make and sell chaparral tablets.

At about the same time, researchers in Salt Lake City were ­designing a clinical study to test chaparral for antitumor activity after observing a patient who had experienced remission, attributed to the use of chaparral, of malignant mela­noma. The 1968–1969 clinical trial at the University of Utah included fifty-nine patients with advanced incurable malignant tumors of various origins. Of the patients who experienced side effects from the use of chaparral, thirteen reported nausea and vomiting; nine, diarrhea; two, ­abdominal cramps; and one, rash, stomatitis, and fever. Tests of liver function were normal. Until 1990, these were the main side effects reported from the use of chaparral.

The study did not definitively demonstrate anticancer activity in chaparral, however. The National Cancer Advisory Council’s standard for an effective anticancer agent is that it produce a significant regression (20 percent) of a specific cancer type for a minimum of two months. Although tumor regression was reported in a few of the patients, the ­results were inconclusive.

In 1990, a case of subacute liver disease attributed to chaparral in a thirty-three-year-old woman was reported. In December 1992, the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition issued a press release warning of the potential link between use of the herb and liver toxicity. In the same month, the American Herbal Products Association asked its members to suspend sales of chaparral in response to the agency’s action. Since then, a number of other cases of liver disease related to chaparral use have been reported. The mechanism of the toxicity problem has not yet been determined. It came as a surprise to many users that chaparral could produce toxic reactions; thousands of people have used capsulated products of the herb for years with no reports of side effects. The herb disappeared from store shelves at the time but is now quietly reappearing, mostly in combination products.

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