Liquorice Health Check, Oro-Dental Implications, and a Case Report

Touyz, Louis Z. G.

Liquorice has many positive and negative health modulating physiological effects which explain a variety of its medical effects. The most widely renowned negative action derives from liquorice's association with hypertension. Because of the inhibition of 11-beta hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase, by liquorice, cortisol levels are high within the collecting duct of the kidney, and potassium is excreted while sodium is retained [4] . Cortisol has high mineralo-corticoid properties, that is, it acts like aldosterone and increases sodium reabsorption from the glomerular filtration in the proximal tubules of the kidney in ENaC channels [3, 4] . Sodium retention leads to higher osmotic intravascular pressure, which in turn retains more water, which increases circulating blood volume with consequent increased blood pressure leading to hypertension [4, 15] . Liquorice has a variety of positive healthy effects on the body. For example, it is known that Liquorice has antiviral properties and has some inhibitory effects on HIV, encephalitis, and SARS-corona viruses [11, 16, 17] .