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Milk Thistle

Posting Date: 08/11/2002

Bile duct inflammation responds well to treatment with this herb.

Dose

Milk thistle should not be administered as a tea or as dried herb because silymarin is neither water-soluble nor readily absorbed from the intestinal tract.

Proprietary products standardized to 70 percent silymarin are utilized in Europe at a usual dose of 420 mg daily.

Treatment normally lasts four to eight weeks at a minimum. Trials of three and six months are common.

One standardized product used in Germany is sold in the United States under the brand name Thisilyn.

Special Precautions

Serious liver diseases require medical attention. In one study, silymarin extract lowered blood glucose and glycosylated hemoglobin values in diabetics.

Diabetic patients should monitor blood glucose closely if they take silymarin, as the dose of insulin or other medication may need adjustment. Please discuss this with your physician.

Adverse Effects

Milk thistle has almost no reported side effects.

Concentrated formulations of silymarin may cause diarrhea or digestive upset in perhaps 1 percent of patients.

Allergic reactions such as hives have been reported very rarely.

Possible Interactions

No adverse interactions have been noted.

It has been suggested that silymarin could be used prophylactically by people taking medicines such as acetaminophen that have the potential to damage the liver. We welcome a clinical trial of standardized silymarin extract to evaluate this theory.