published by nonprofit Johns Hopkins Press
posted in Complementary Alternative Medicine on January 4, 2025 by
Updated March 1, 2025
Lupus is an autoimmune disease where the immune system is overactive. This post discusses a 2024 research study showing that some herbal supplements for lupus can worsen lupus. Patients should not take substances that are “immunostimulatory” and “boost” or “support” the immune system. The last thing you want to do is make the immune system more active by taking supplements that worsen lupus.
The proper way to treat lupus is to use the safest treatments available that calm down the immune system enough to control lupus without causing any side effects. To see the latest (2025) ways we should treat lupus, see my blog post: https://www.lupusencyclopedia.com/treatment-of-lupus
This article discusses supplements that can flare autoimmune diseases like lupus. To make them easier to find, this article highlights unsafe supplements in bold red font.
I also list supplements that may help autoimmune diseases like lupus. These healthy supplements are highlighted in green font.
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NOTE: Johns Hopkins University Press, publisher of The Lupus Encyclopedia, is a nonprofit publisher. If you purchase JHUP books, like The Lupus Encyclopedia, you support projects like Project MUSE.
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For many years, we have known that patients taking echinacea supplements or eating a lot of alfalfa or mung bean sprouts can get lupus flares. Now, we can confidently add other immune system-boosting supplements to the list. Studies in the laboratory and in animals previously demonstrated that supplements promoted as “boosting” or “supporting” the immune system increase immune system activity. Now, a large study demonstrated that these supplements actually do cause flares in autoimmune disease patients.
Lupus experts at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, followed 673 patients with lupus and dermatomyositis (another autoimmune disease). All patients had autoimmune skin (cutaneous) disease. Here are the findings:
The percentage in parentheses after the name of the herbal supplement shows the percentage of lupus patients who flared when taking the supplement. These are listed in order starting with the herbs that caused the most lupus flares.
I have included links for each herb that supports its immunostimulatory effects (click on the name of the herb):
Doctors Grace Hile (University of Michigan) and Victoria Werth (University of Pennsylvania) are dermatologists specializing in autoimmune diseases like lupus and dermatomyositis. In their 2025 article about type 1 interferons in lupus and dermatomyositis, they also recommend avoiding the following immune system-boosting supplements:
The following supplements have shown promise for reducing lupus disease activity and help lupus include:
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Dr. Michelle Petri, Director of the Johns Hopkins Lupus Center, reported that they had a series of SLE patients who were taking daily Echinacea and had severe flares. Two patients required the chemotherapy agent cyclophosphamide. The autoimmune skin expert, Dr. Victoria Werth, reported many patients flaring from taking these supplements. Many of the articles above, highlighted in red, are from Dr. Werth’s clinic.
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Read more in The Lupus Encyclopedia, edition 2
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Thank you for sharing this information, it is really helpful to lupusnpatients like me. I’m curious, the last item seems to be a very broad category, it says protein powder. There are a LOT of protein powder with a host of different ingredients in them. Did this study break down that category any further?
SJ: I totally agree. The same goes for the green drinks and herbal teas. I wish they had included the ingredients in the associated drinks, so we would have more information. I suspect that protein powders, green drinks and herbal teas are safe if they do not contain immunostimulatory herbal products. I’ll amend the post with this comment.
Thanks for commenting,
Donald Thomas, MD
Ryan: So sorry to hear that. I hope she finds it helpful. My patients who do the hard work (avoid triggers, eat anti-inflammatory take their meds religiously, exerciser etc do amazing. I have patients in their 80s and 90s even:
https://www.lupusencyclopedia.com/how-to-succeed-after-lupus-diagnosis/
I hope she does well
Donald Thomas, MD
McKenzie: I prefer my patients get their probiotics and prebiotics via food sources. Some capsule probiotics contain strains that have been linked to lupus flares. We have much to learn:
Donald Thomas, MD
Thank you for sharing. Is Isa big problem that not enough information is givne about supplements. I am a nurse, that works at a pharmacy and have lupus…I wonder is it because we don’t know enough or are we bad at communicating the information to patients and consumers? 20 years ago I was on exchange in Thailand, and they were researching in herbal medicin and western medicin and how they worked together.
This is quite helpful for other autoimmune diseases too. I, too, wished they’d included more detail for the herbal teas & protein powders. I have autoimmune cirrhosis so green tea extracts are off my menu. The helpful supplements really do help. My liver doc does caution about turmeric & contaminants & suggests using fresh. Not always reasonable!
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