*People with lupus or a family history of lupus should avoid alfalfa in any form.
*Pregnant or nursing women, young children, or people with estrogen sensitive cancers should also avoid alfalfa because of its possible estrogenic effects.
* Despite the popular perception of sprouts as health food, alfalfa and other varieties of raw seed sprouts are common vehicles for produce-associated bacterial foodborne illness. Although sprout-associated outbreaks have been reported since 1973 (1), back-to-back multinational outbreaks of gastroenteritis with Salmonella enterica serotypes Newport and Stanley in 1995 and 1996 (2,3) and the 1996 Sakai city outbreak of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 in >5,000 Japanese schoolchildren have refocused attention on the public health hazard posed by seed sprouts.
*Alfalfa has a high potassium content. People with chronic kidney insufficiency, hypoaldosteronism, or who are using potassium-altering medications should avoid alfalfa to avoid the risk of potentially life-threatening hyperkalemia (too much potassium in the blood).
*Some health practitioners recommend that people who are immunocompromised should avoid the sprouts because of the risk of food poisoning.