Got Milk Thistle?

Milk Thistle (Silybum marianum) is distinctive with its leaf design, with white along the veins like a webbing, looking like “spilled milk”.

This weedy thistle is an important medicinal plant thought to be originally from Europe and Southern Asia, but now cultivated & spread in many areas of the world.

Milk Thistle develops purple thistle flowers that can grow a few feet high. It has been used as a food (once spines are removed!)—the young shoots boiled, the flower heads consumed like globe artichoke, and young leaves can be eaten raw in salads or boiled and consumed like spinach.

Milk Thistle is sometimes also used decoratively in gardens (but be careful of its invasiveness), and the flower heads are cut used fresh or dried in arrangements.

Milk Thistle has a long history of use in herbalism, where it is used mainly as a liver tonic, and for conditions where liver health is important.

Through scientific investigation Milk Thistle has been found to have hepatoprotective, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, anticancer, and cardioprotective effects.

I’ve always wondered why pharmaceutical drugs are not popular for protecting & promoting liver health, with all of the abuses that exist, but Milk Thistle (and several other herbs) dutifully stand by for such uses.

For example, a highly standardized Milk Thistle extract (Silybinin) has been used in Europe for treatment of liver disease and poisoning from death cap (Amanita phalloides) mushrooms.

Many clinical studies have been conducted on Milk Thistle and/or its main active components (silybinin & silymarin) and have shown good outcomes with diabetes and its complications, and is showing good promise for liver cirrhosis, alcohol-related liver disease, hay fever, mushroom poisoning, hepatitis, and complications from chemotherapy, among other uses.

hashtag#liver hashtag#mushrooms hashtag#nafld hashtag#herbalmedicine hashtag#milk
**This content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of such advice or treatment from a personal physician.

Scroll to Top