People's Pharmacy

For more up-to-date information on drugs, herbs and home remedies visit The People's Pharmacy Home Site at peoplespharmacy.us

Milk Thistle

Posting Date: 08/11/2002

Milk thistle, also referred to as St. Mary's thistle, lady thistle, or holy thistle, originated in the Mediterranean region and was grown and used as a vegetable throughout Europe. It was brought to the United States and has adapted to life in the wild in California and along the East Coast.

It is a tall plant with large prickly leaves and a reddish purple flower. The sap is white and milky, perhaps explaining at least one of its common names.

The white spots along the ribs of the leaves were said to have been drops of the Virgin Mary's milk. The herb was used in times past to help encourage milk production, but this may have been due to the name and the association.

The medicinal use of milk thistle goes back two thousand years. Pliny the Elder wrote of it, praising its value for "carrying off bile."

Medieval herbalists also made use of this property, and in the sixteenth century English herbalists adopted it. It did not maintain its popularity, however, and by the early twentieth century only homeopaths were familiar with it.

With a renewal of interest in herbal medicines, researchers started to investigate milk thistle scientifically in the 1950s.

The part of the plant that is used is the small hard fruit with the fuzz (technically called "pappus") removed.

Active Ingredients

Silymarin, which makes up from 1 to 4 percent of milk thistle fruits, is itself actually a combination of chemicals called flavonolignans.

In addition to these, the seeds contain fatty acids and flavonoids, including apigenin, quercetin, kaempferol, naringin, and silybonol. The flavonolignans are the active ingredients, and proprietary extracts standardized to 70 percent silymarin are common in Europe.

Uses

Milk thistle extract is occasionally used to stimulate the appetite, but its primary use is for liver and gallbladder problems.