Drug & supplement interaction

African Wild Potato + Nivolumab

Nivolumab brand name: Opdivo.

No Known Interaction
Medically reviewed by · Updated July 2026 · Pair last verified Sep 27, 2026
The bottom line No known interaction

We found no known interaction between African Wild Potato and Nivolumab in our sources. Absence of a documented interaction is not the same as proven safety, and does not guarantee one does not exist. Do not start, stop, or change a medication or supplement based on this page; confirm with your pharmacist or doctor first. Additionally, although there is no interaction, the label for Nivolumab states a food rule worth keeping to, and the two are separately associated with some of the same side effects, which would make a new symptom harder to attribute to one or the other.

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Interaction report

African Wild Potato and Nivolumab

We checked these two against our interaction database. Here is what we found.

No Known Interaction Found

We did not find a documented interaction between Nivolumab and African Wild Potato in our sources. This does not guarantee that the combination is completely free of risk — there is often limited research on supplements and herbal products, especially around drug interactions.

If you decide to take both, the practical routine is simple: add one new thing at a time and note the date you started it. If the combination is going to disagree with you, it usually shows in the first days to a couple of weeks — and a start date turns “I’ve been feeling off” into something a pharmacist can actually work with. Do not stop a prescribed medicine on your own.

Always talk with your pharmacist or doctor before making changes to your medications or supplements, particularly if you take several medications or have an ongoing health condition.

African Wild Potato safety at a glance

African Wild Potat... overall Use caution Limited human safety data and unclear effective doses mean it should be used cautiously.
Pregnancy Avoid Not enough safety information, so it is best avoided during pregnancy.
Breastfeeding Avoid No reliable safety data, so avoid while breastfeeding.

Safety guidance is general; always confirm with your pharmacist or doctor for your situation.

Still wondering about combining Nivolumab and African Wild Potato? Ask Dr. Brian Staiger, PharmD, BCPS directly ›
How we checked

Why No Interaction Is Listed for Nivolumab

Interactions in our licensed database are recorded against drug classes, not just single drug names. Nivolumab is filed under a single classification — antineoplastics. African Wild Potato has documented interactions with 9 drug classes — the most serious being antidiabetes drugs (moderate), cytochrome p450 1a2 (cyp1a2) substrates (moderate) and cytochrome p450 2b6 (cyp2b6) substrates (moderate) — and none of Nivolumab’s classifications are among them.

Classification data comes from our licensed Natural Medicines dataset. A medication can belong to classes beyond those recorded there, so this describes how the check was run — it is not a safety guarantee.

Keep it in perspective

African Wild Potato Does Interact With Other Medications

African Wild Potato has 1,005 moderate known drug interactions in our database — Nivolumab isn’t one of them. If you take anything else, check it against the full list below.

Moderate 1,005 No known interaction 1,825 (incl. Nivolumab)
Taking anything else?

Check Another of Your Medications Against African Wild Potato

Covers the 2,830 medications we’ve checked against African Wild Potato. Pick one to open its full report.

What to actually watch for

No Interaction Found — But Data Suggests African Wild Potato and Nivolumab May Share Several of the Same Side Effects

This is not an interaction. Neither one changes how your body handles the other, and nothing here says they react together. What our sources do show is that each has separately been linked to the effects below — so taking both can make those effects more likely to turn up, and harder to pin on one or the other if they do.

  • Stomach upset / Constipation / Diarrhea / Vomiting / Nausea reported in 5.4% of FDA reports for Nivolumab Additional detail

    African Wild Potato

    “There is limited information available about the adverse effects of African wild potato. Some studies have evaluated constituents isolated from African wild potato, including beta-sitosterol and hypoxoside. Side effects reported with beta-sitosterol include nausea, indigestion, gas, diarrhea, constipation, erectile dysfunction, and loss of libido.”

    African Wild Potato · Natural Medicines adverse-effect record, reported in anxiety.

    4 sources cited
    1. 5327. Berges RR, Windeler J, Trampisch HJ, et al. Randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial of beta-sitosterol in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia. Beta-sitosterol Study Group. Lancet 1995;345:1529-32.
    2. 5328. Klippel KF, Hiltl DM, Schipp B. A multicentric, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial of beta-sitosterol (phytosterol) for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia. Br J Urol 1997;80:427-32.
    3. 5942. Berges RR, Windeler J, Trampisch HJ, et al. Randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial of beta-sitosterol in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia. Lancet 1995;345:1529-32.
    4. 13584. Smit BJ, Albrecht CF, Liebenberg RW, et al A phase I trial of hypoxoside as an oral prodrug for cancer therapy--absence of toxicity. S Afr Med J 1995;85:865-70.

    “Orally, specific beta-sitosterol extracts from African wild potato (Azuprostat, Harzol) can cause nausea, indigestion, gas, diarrhea, or constipation. Hypoxoside, an African wild potato constituent, has been reported to cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea in one small, uncontrolled study.”

    African Wild Potato · Natural Medicines adverse-effect record, reported in constipation.

    3 sources cited
    1. 5327. Berges RR, Windeler J, Trampisch HJ, et al. Randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial of beta-sitosterol in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia. Beta-sitosterol Study Group. Lancet 1995;345:1529-32.
    2. 5328. Klippel KF, Hiltl DM, Schipp B. A multicentric, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial of beta-sitosterol (phytosterol) for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia. Br J Urol 1997;80:427-32.
    3. 13584. Smit BJ, Albrecht CF, Liebenberg RW, et al A phase I trial of hypoxoside as an oral prodrug for cancer therapy--absence of toxicity. S Afr Med J 1995;85:865-70.

    Nivolumab

    Listed in the ADVERSE REACTIONS section of the FDA label for Nivolumab, and in voluntary FDA adverse-event reports. Read the label on DailyMed ›

Reported for African Wild Potato but not commonly for Nivolumab: erection problems, a change in sex drive and anxiety or restlessness.

Effects for Nivolumab come from the ADVERSE REACTIONS section of its FDA label; effects for African Wild Potato come from the Natural Medicines adverse-effect record, quoted above. Where a percentage is shown, it is the share of 96,645 voluntary FDA FAERS reports for Nivolumab that mention that effect — a reporting proportion, not an incidence rate and not evidence the drug caused it. Wording is matched across sources by our own clinical vocabulary, so treat this as a prompt to pay attention, not a diagnosis.

How to take them

Some Nivolumab Products Have a Food Rule — African Wild Potato Should Not Break It

At least one FDA label for a product containing Nivolumab says to take it on an empty stomach. Most supplements — African Wild Potato included — are taken with a meal, so the easy mistake is swallowing both together at breakfast. Where that rule applies, keep Nivolumab on its own and move African Wild Potato to a meal later in the day.

This may not be true of your version. Food instructions belong to the product, not the ingredient: two Nivolumab products can carry different directions, and extended-release forms often differ from immediate-release ones. The label we read is quoted below — check the directions on your own box or bottle, or ask your pharmacist, for how to take the exact product you were given.

Table 2: Recommended Dosages of Intravenous OPDIVO in Combination with Other Therapeutic Agents Indication Recommended OPDIVO Dosage Duration of Therapy Unresectable or metastatic melanoma 1 mg/kg every 3 weeks with ipilimumab 3 mg/kg In combination with ipilimumab for a maximum of 4 doses or until unacceptable toxicity, whichever occurs earlier Adult patients and pediatric patients aged 12 years

From the Dosage and Administration section of the FDA label we read for Nivolumab — where that label names a specific product, the instruction is that product's. Read the label on DailyMed ›

A food rule is not an interaction — it is about how much of the medicine you absorb. The directions that came with your own product, and your pharmacist, outrank anything on this page.

Overlapping uses

What Nivolumab Is Prescribed For, and What African Wild Potato Has Been Studied For

These two come up together because they touch the same health topic — not because they do the same job. Nivolumab is a prescription medicine with approved uses on its FDA label. African Wild Potato is a supplement: what follows is what researchers have looked at it for, and how strong that evidence is.

Nivolumab is prescribed for: Opdivo (nivolumab) is used to treat many types of cancer in adults, and some in patients 12 years and older. It can be used alone or in combination with other therapies depending on the cancer type and stage. Cancers it treats include melanoma (including after surgery to reduce the chance of the cancer coming back), non-small cell lung cancer, malignant pleural mesothelioma, advanced renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer), classical Hodgkin lymphoma, squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, urothelial carcinoma (bladder cancer), colorectal cancer with specific genetic features (MSI-H or dMMR), hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer), esophageal cancer, gastroesophageal junction cancer, and gastric (stomach) cancer. Some uses require the tumor to test positive for a protein called PD-L1, and some are specific to certain stages of disease or prior treatments received.

Read the rest of what Nivolumab is prescribed for

Your oncologist will determine which use applies to your situation.

African Wild Potato has been studied for:

  • Lung cancer studied, not established African Wild Potato has been studied for this. Natural Medicines rates the evidence: Insufficient Reliable Evidence To Rate Read what the research shows

    African Wild Potato for lung cancer

    A very small clinical study in patients with lung cancer shows that taking hypoxoside, a constituent of African wild potato extract, does not seem to prolong survival when compared with historical control. The validity of these findings is limited by the small study size and lack of a control group.

    1 source cited
    1. 13584. Smit BJ, Albrecht CF, Liebenberg RW, et al A phase I trial of hypoxoside as an oral prodrug for cancer therapy--absence of toxicity. S Afr Med J 1995;85:865-70.

Effectiveness ratings and the research summaries above are the verbatim record from the Natural Medicines database, which grades evidence from “Effective” down to “Insufficient Reliable Evidence To Rate”. A rating below the top of that scale means researchers have looked at it — not that it works, and never that it can stand in for a prescribed medicine. Do not stop or replace Nivolumab on your own; if you are taking African Wild Potato for the same health topic, tell your prescriber, especially if the medicine is being adjusted to a target.

Everything else you take

See Every Supplement That Interacts With Nivolumab

This page covers African Wild Potato only. If you take other supplements — a multivitamin, a sleep aid, something for joints — the Nivolumab page lists 1 supplement it has a documented interaction with, worst first, each one explained.

The most serious there right now: American Pawpaw (minor).

By severity: 1 minor.

From our pharmacist’s overview on the Nivolumab page

“Nivolumab (Opdivo) is an immunotherapy infusion that trains the body's own immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells, the kind of drug you might expect to carry a long list of supplement warnings. It does not.”

Reviewed by 2 · Jul 18, 2026

Open the Nivolumab interaction page

One more smart check

Taking African Wild Potato as Part of a Dietary Supplement Product? Check It for Interactions

We hold 1 real supplement products containing African Wild Potato, each one broken down to its full ingredient list — and combination products often carry several ingredients besides African Wild Potato. Even though African Wild Potato itself has no known interaction with Nivolumab, another ingredient on your label might. Find your product and we’ll check every ingredient on its label:

How much people look this up

Where African Wild Potato and Nivolumab Sit Against Everything Else

Out of every supplement and medication people look up on HelloPharmacist, here is where these two land this week — and which way each has been moving.

Supplement African Wild Potato
Top half

#567 of 1,452 supplements looked up here in the last 7 days

29 days ago today
Medication Nivolumab
Top half

#779 of 2,830 medications looked up here in the last 7 days

29 days ago today

Position among everything looked up on this site, not a measure of how commonly either one is used or how important it is. A supplement can climb this list because of a news story. It counts every request to the page, automated ones included, and nothing here identifies anyone.

Where does our data come from?
  • Source: the Natural Medicines (TRC Healthcare) clinical database — the evidence-graded professional reference for herb & supplement interactions.
  • Citation library: 103,510 references behind our interaction content, 65,311 of them resolved to verified PubMed/DOI sources. See every African Wild Potato reference on this page ↓
  • Freshness: we automatically re-check this combination every week — this pair was last verified September 27, 2026. The African Wild Potato and Nivolumab records this page draws on were last updated July 10, 2026.
  • What “no known interaction” means: no documented interaction in the sources above — not a guarantee of safety. Supplements are studied far less than prescription drugs, so we say exactly what the evidence supports, and nothing more.
Data structure & sourcing designed and verified by .
Supplement

About African Wild Potato

What is African Wild Potato?

  • Immune support
  • Prostate and urinary symptoms
  • Inflammation
  • General tonic/wellness
  • Skin conditions

African Wild Potato (Hypoxis hemerocallidea) is a southern African plant traditionally used as a tonic and for immune, prostate, and inflammatory complaints. Human evidence for these uses is very limited, and safety—especially during pregnancy, breastfeeding, or with serious illness—is not well established. Talk to a pharmacist or doctor before using it.

Hypoxis hemerocallidea · Hypoxidaceae · Corm (underground tuber/rootstock) · Capsules, tablets, tinctures, dried corm extracts, traditional decoctions

An interaction check asks whether these two react with each other — it does not ask whether African Wild Potato is a good idea for someone in your situation. Here is what our African Wild Potato record says about it on its own.

African Wild Potato: dosing

There is no well-established, standardized dose for African Wild Potato. Products vary widely in strength and in how they are prepared, so it is hard to compare one to another.If you choose to use it, follow the directions on the product label and do not exceed them. A pharmacist can help you review a specific product, check for quality concerns, and make sure it is appropriate for you. Choose products from reputable manufacturers, since supplement quality is not tightly regulated.

From our African Wild Potato monograph — the full record covers uses, side effects and every documented interaction.

Read the full African Wild Potato monograph & all interactions
Medication

About Nivolumab Injection

What Is Nivolumab Injection Used For?

Brand name: Opdivo

Opdivo (nivolumab) is used to treat many types of cancer in adults, and some in patients 12 years and older. It can be used alone or in combination with other therapies depending on the cancer type and stage. Cancers it treats include melanoma (including after surgery to reduce the chance of the cancer coming back), non-small cell lung cancer, malignant pleural mesothelioma, advanced renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer), classical Hodgkin lymphoma, squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, urothelial carcinoma (bladder cancer), colorectal cancer with specific genetic features (MSI-H or dMMR), hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer), esophageal cancer, gastroesophageal junction cancer, and gastric (stomach) cancer.

Some uses require the tumor to test positive for a protein called PD-L1, and some are specific to certain stages of disease or prior treatments received. Your oncologist will determine which use applies to your situation.

Most-Reported Side Effects for Nivolumab

From FAERS, the FDA’s public side-effect reporting system (96,645 reports, all brands). Reports are voluntary and are not proof the drug caused the effect.

Malignant neoplasm progression 9,878 reports
Diarrhea 5,251 reports
Fatigue 4,195 reports
Fever 3,721 reports
Nausea 3,182 reports
See full Nivolumab Injection drug information
Keep checking

Other Drugs & African Wild Potato

Browse every other medication we’ve checked against African Wild Potato — both the ones with a known interaction and the ones without. Select any drug for the full detail.

0Major
1,005Moderate
0Minor
1,824No known interaction
1,005 Moderate 1,824 No interaction
Moderate

1,005 interactions

Showing 60 of 1,005 moderate interactions — see all 1,005 on the African Wild Potato page.

No interaction 1,824 drugs checked — show the list

We also checked African Wild Potato against these medications and found no known interaction in our sources. Open any page to confirm.

Showing the 60 most looked-up of 1,824 medications checked with no known interaction — see the full African Wild Potato list.

See the full African Wild Potato interactions page
See every supplement checked against Nivolumab, ranked by severity
Evidence & sources

African Wild Potato References

The 10 references that drive our African Wild Potato monograph and interaction data, from the evidence-graded Natural Medicines (TRC Healthcare) database. Citations with a link open the study on PubMed or the publisher’s site.

  1. Berges RR, Windeler J, Trampisch HJ, et al. Randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial of beta-sitosterol in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia. Beta-sitosterol Study Group. Lancet 1995;345:1529-32.
  2. Klippel KF, Hiltl DM, Schipp B. A multicentric, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial of beta-sitosterol (phytosterol) for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia. Br J Urol 1997;80:427-32.
  3. Berges RR, Windeler J, Trampisch HJ, et al. Randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial of beta-sitosterol in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia. Lancet 1995;345:1529-32.
  4. Berges RR, Kassen A, Senge T. Treatment of symptomatic benign prostatic hyperplasia with beta-sitosterol: an 18-month follow-up. BJU Int 2000;85:842-6.
  5. Mahomed IM, Ojewole JA. Hypoglycemic effect of Hypoxis hemerocallidea corm (African potato) aqueous extract in rats. Methods Find Exp Clin Pharmacol 2003;25:617-23. PubMed
  6. Smit BJ, Albrecht CF, Liebenberg RW, et al A phase I trial of hypoxoside as an oral prodrug for cancer therapy--absence of toxicity. S Afr Med J 1995;85:865-70.
  7. Wilt TJ, Ishani A, Rutks I, et al. Phytotherapy for benign prostatic hyperplasia. Public Health Nutr 2000;3(4A):459-472. PubMed
  8. Jalloh MA, Gregory PJ, Hein D, et al. Dietary supplement interactions with antiretrovirals: a systematic review. Int J STD AIDS. 2017 Jan;28(1):4-15. PubMed
  9. Fasinu PS, Gutmann H, Schiller H, Bouic PJ, Rosenkranz B. The potential of Hypoxis hemerocallidea for herb-drug interaction. Pharm Biol. 2013 Dec;51(12):1499-507.
  10. Havenga K, Abay E, Wiesner L, Viljoen A, Steyn D, Hamman J. The in vitro and in vivo effects of Hypoxis hemerocallidea on indinavir pharmacokinetics: modulation of efflux. Planta Med. 2018;84(12-13):895-901. PubMed

Medication overviews come from MedlinePlus (NIH); supplement label data from the NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database. Content is written and reviewed by licensed HelloPharmacist pharmacists — see our data sources and editorial standards.

Pharmacist Counseling Corner

Taking African Wild Potato and Nivolumab Together: Common Questions

Is it safe to take African Wild Potato with Nivolumab?
We do not list a known interaction between African Wild Potato and Nivolumab. That does not guarantee the combination is risk-free, so confirm with your pharmacist or doctor — especially if you take other medications or have a health condition.
Do African Wild Potato and Nivolumab have any of the same side effects?
Yes — our sources link each of them separately to 5 of the same effects. That is not an interaction: neither changes how your body handles the other. It does mean that if one of those effects turns up, it can be harder to tell which one is behind it. They are listed on this page with the source behind each.
Should I take African Wild Potato and Nivolumab at the same time of day?
At least one FDA label for a product containing Nivolumab says to take it on an empty stomach, and supplements are usually taken with a meal — so taking them together at breakfast is the easy mistake. Where that applies, keep Nivolumab on its own and move African Wild Potato to a meal later in the day. Food instructions belong to the product rather than the ingredient, so check the directions on your own box. This is about absorption, not an interaction.
Are African Wild Potato and Nivolumab used for the same thing?
They overlap in purpose, which usually means the real question is whether you need both rather than whether they are safe together. This page lists the shared uses and how strong the evidence is for African Wild Potato in each. That is a conversation for your prescriber, especially if Nivolumab is being adjusted to a target.
How was the African Wild Potato and Nivolumab combination checked?
Interactions in our licensed database are recorded against drug classes. Nivolumab is filed under 1 classification, and African Wild Potato has documented interactions with 9 drug classes — none of Nivolumab's classifications are among them. A medication can belong to classes beyond those recorded in our dataset, so this describes how the check was run rather than guaranteeing safety.
Does African Wild Potato interact with any other medications?
Yes. African Wild Potato has 1,005 documented drug interactions in our database — Nivolumab is simply not one of them. If you take anything else, it is worth checking each one; they are all listed on this page.
Does Nivolumab interact with any supplements?
Yes. Nivolumab has documented interactions with 1 supplement in our database — African Wild Potato is not one of them. The Nivolumab interaction page linked on this page lists every one, ranked by severity.

Written and reviewed by the HelloPharmacist editorial staff. Our editorial policy

Where next

Keep Exploring

African Wild Potato monograph Uses, safety profile, and every drug interaction in one place Nivolumab Injection drug information The full plain-English guide to this medication Nivolumab supplement interactions Every supplement checked against Nivolumab, ranked by severity Supplement interaction checker Check any supplement or product against your medications Browse medications A–Z Every drug we’ve checked against herbs & supplements References The 10 citations behind this page Ask a pharmacist Free, personal answer from our licensed team

Still Have a Question About Nivolumab and African Wild Potato?

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This information is for education only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always check with your pharmacist or doctor before starting, stopping, or combining supplements and medications.