KPC Products, Inc.
(U.S. Main Office)
16 Goddard
Irvine, CA 92618

Aristolochic Acid
While KP is often known for the high quality of its products, it's often not known how much effort is put into safety. There are many stories of clinics that have misidentified herbs or mistakenly substituted one herb for another. These mistakes can seriously threaten the end consumers. Given the great breadth of Chinese herbal ingredients, clinics may easily be confused by one ingredient with multiple names or when multiple species share the same name. Herbs similar in appearance are sometimes dishonestly manipulated and sold as another herb or herbs are simply misidentified by the herbalist.

Authenticity of the herb is to the precursor to safety and efficacy of a prescription. In 1993, a Belgian weight loss clinic incorrectly administered aristolochic fangchi (guang fang ji) combined with other weight loss stimulants. Approximately 100 people developed nephropathy, or kidney failure. The kidney failure was linked to presence of aristolochic acid (AA), the main chemical substance in mistakenly used guang fangji.

The aristolochiaceae plant family is dispersed across tropical areas. The world contains about 200 subspecies in the family. A few species are commonly used Chinese herbs such as guang fang ji (aristolohchia fangchi), aristolochia mansuriensis, Aristolochia contorta bunge or the ripened plant Aristolochia debilis sieboldet zuccarini.

We performTLC analysis                                                      
and HPLC analysis to                 
distinguish the authentic herbs from the common substitutes and
maintain an inflexible, uniform policy forbidding          
any ingredients tainted  
with the presence of aristolochic acid.           

Reports indicate that aristolochic acid is a carcinogen. Aristolochic acid is believed to be the primary cause of Belgian Chinese herbs Nephropathy (CHN), as well as incidents of acute fibrosis in the kidney area and urinary tract cancer. It may also possess oncogenic properties. In light of these alarming reports, aristolochic acid is considered a dangerous and toxic substance.

Since 1992, KP has put extra effort into promoting awareness towards the serious dangers of mistaken identification of herbs and the inauthentic herbal products on the market. KP has found more than 20 misidentified herbs on the market in the last decade. As a company that values safety, KP's quality control teams take authentication and screening for aristolochic acid very seriously.

KP maintains a uniform policy forbidding ingredients with aristolochic acid. KP takes extra precautions toward those herbs that are easily confused with aristolochic-herbs – Stephania tetrandra, Clematis armandi, and Vladimiria souliei. KP's labs obtain chemical markers to distinguish the authentic herbs from common substitutes. All of KP's herbs are produced without aristolochic acid according to traditional Chinese preparations.