The root, bark and leaves of Cat's claw are used medicinally, antibacterial, antimutagenic, antioxidant, antiinflammatory, antitumorous ,antiviral, cylostatic, depurative, diuretic, hypotensive, immunostimulat and vermifuge. Cat's claw was used to treat tumors, inflammations, rheumatism and gastric ulcers, gonorrhea, dysentery, diabetes. urinary tract cancer in women, cirrhosis, gastritis, rheumatism, inflammations and tumors. The elemental analysis results showed that Cat's claw capsules contained considerable amount of sodium, potassium, calcium., and magnesium while other tested elements such as iron, copper, chromium, manganese, lead, mercury, cadmium, and arsenic were not found. These results demonstrated that Cat's claw capsules were devoid of the toxic element. The experiments using GC-MS technique for the detection of any pesticide or insecticide residues in Cat's claw capsules revealed that the drug was devoid of any of such residual compounds. Furthermore, the mycotoxin contents were found to be within the allowable limits. The acute, sub-acute and chronic toxicity studies were conducted in mice. The animals in the treatment groups were found to be normal and comparable to the control groups. All the animals were healthy and survived the observation period without any sign of toxicity. Throughout the experiment, none of the rat in any treatment group showed any Sign of abnormal toxicity and was found comparable to the control groups.
The results of present studies showed Cat's claw to possess relatively low toxicity. However, due to its known pharmacological activities Cat's claw was recommended to be used with caution with other drugs such as: lovastatin, krtoconazole, Ketoconazole, fexofenadine and triazolam.