Pregnancy and breast-feeding: Using northern prickly ash bark during pregnancy might be UNSAFE. Not enough is known about the safety of using northern prickly ash berry during pregnancy. It’s best to avoid using both forms of northern prickly ash if you are pregnant.

It’s also wise to avoid northern prickly ash if you are breast-feeding. Not enough is known about its possible effects on nursing babies.

Stomach or intestinal problems including ulcers, Crohns disease, irritable bowel syndrome, infections, or other digestive tract conditions: Northern prickly ash can stimulate digestive juices and cause irritation. This can make stomach and intestinal problems worse. Do not use northern prickly ash if you have any of these conditions.

Northern prickly ash bark might be safe for most people, but the potential side effects are not known.

There isnt enough information to know if the northern prickly ash berry is safe to use as medicine or what the potential side effects might be.

The toxicities of the preparations – extracts, decoctions and paste are studied by many researchers. The aqueous extracts of dried fruit of Zanthoxylum armatum which are used extensively in traditional herbal remedies exert their toxic potential in vivo by inducing membrane damage of cellular organelles, chromatin condensation, chromatin marginalization, chromosome clumping and nuclear DNA damage resulting in subsequent mitotic arrest