milk thistle found to stimulate growth of new liver cells

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Milk thistle found to stimulate growth of new liver cells

Date: 22nd August 2005, Source: Althealth News

It has been called the " silent epidemic. " This virus can take from

10 to 30 years to show outward symptoms. Outside the obvious high-risk groups,

it is often first detected as part of life insurance physicals. By the time

hepatitis C is discovered, cirrhosis and liver failure can be imminent.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1.8 percent of the

American population is infected. There is no vaccination, only treatment with

Interferon, which is physically difficult, quite expensive and not always

effective.

The search for a less costly treatment for hepatitis C has, for

better or worse, led many sufferers back to herbal supplements. Throughout

history one plant has long been known for " carrying off bile. "

This is first century herbal language for restoring liver function.

In past times the primary killer of livers were wild mushrooms, which even today

remain so toxic that modern medicine has few options for treating poisonings.

The one plant traditionally used as an antidote to the death cap

mushroom (Amanita phalloides) is milk thistle. This wayside weed, Silybum

marianum, can be found naturalized through much of America. A native of the

Mediterranean, it enjoys warmer dry climates, but like most thistles, it is

remarkably tough and adaptable.

Science has isolated the active ingredient in milk thistle,

silymarin, which is believed to stimulate the growth of new liver cells. It is

commercially extracted from the seed, but the chemical is present in other parts

of the plant, too. A number of studies related to chronic liver disease treated

with silymarin have produced mixed results. Although the statistics do not

support its efficacy, many hepatitis sufferers continue to hope that milk

thistle supplements, widely sold in capsule form, are beneficial.

Milk thistle relatives fall under a more well-known thistle genus

Carduus. They are first-class colonizers that hail from as far away as Africa

and Asia. Their presence has become a sign of ill-kept ground. This is in part

because sharply thorned leaves makes grazing animals steer clear of them. An

indolent farmer is likely to ignore a small colony, giving it time to infest an

entire pasture in a handful of seasons. Many exotic thistles have naturalized in

America. This includes the artichoke thistle, a wild form of the cultivated

vegetable, globe artichoke. Artichoke thistle thrives in coastal grassland

communities of California.

Thistle is a weed often spread by livestock or feed. Thistles

harvested with hay can travel a long way before being released from the bale at

a new destination. Grain bags, as well as the animals themselves, help thistle

travel whenever they are sold and transported. This explains why thistles can

often be imported into gardens with unsterilized or insufficiently composted

manures.

When introduced to a new location, the seed quickly germinates. In

farms and gardens, a single parent plant can quickly produce countless progeny

in their first year. This speed of infestation caused great alarm in early 20th

century Australia, where the weeds, introduced from Europe, ran rampant.

Eventually an act of parliament was required to force land owners to promptly

control thistles before they get out of hand.

Milk thistle cousins, the artichokes and globe thistle, make

somewhat better candidates for gardens. But they, too, can naturalize and become

weeds. The edible artichoke flower bud resembles that of milk thistle but is

much larger.

In the garden, let an artichoke bud bloom, and it becomes a giant

purple thistle flower. As the plants grow tall, they develop a thick stalk. In

Italy, the interior flesh of the thistle stalk is called cardoon, a delicacy

named for their genus, Caruus.

Thistles are a remarkable story of survival and colonization. They

also tell a tale of invasive exotics that naturalize too easily in America. The

plants pepper the herbals back to the time of Dioscorides for their medicinal

values. In various forms, the stems, flowers and leaves have been valuable food.

An English herbalist once said of rediscovered old thistles,

romantically if not scientifically, " It is a friend to the liver and blood ...

but as the world decays, so doth the use of good old things and others, more

delicate and less virtuous brought in. "

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