I started taking Milk Thistle in the early 90's. I used to suffer from sever allergies every spring and fall, with sinus infections that would turn into bronchitis. Twice a year I would end up on antibiotics.
Now, I can't even remember the last time I had a sinus infection or bronchitis. I rarely get sick at all.
"Nature's Truth" is made in America, non-GMO, and free of gluten, wheat, yeast, milk, lactose, soy, Artificial colors, Artificial flavors, Artificial sweeteners, and preservatives.
Powerful work, Unbekoming — you took milk thistle far beyond the “liver cleanse” clichés and showed how it rewires the whole terrain. The transplant-allergy anomaly is a brilliant hook, one of those signals that makes you sit up and rethink the body as an intelligent field, not just plumbing.
I write along similar lines at The Cosmic Onion — chasing those hidden connections where ancient plant allies and modern anomalies meet. Wolves sniff the same trail from different angles. Glad to see you out front with such clarity. Awooo.
Excellent article - Worth considering is our option and capacity to grow Milk Thistle through to seed, and harvest as home-grown herbal medication - a beautiful and distinctive plant . . from the right distance. Dry the ripe flowers and blow-torch off all the spikey bits to get to the seeds, which are safely protected from the flames.
Natural milk thistle seeds contain approximately 3% to 6% silymarin by weight. Drought stress increases silymarin content, especially the more active silybin fraction. While containing only 2-5% silymarin, whole herb powders provide the complete plant matrix including beneficial microbes and cofactors that support terrain medicine principles.
So . . 6 grams (a heaped tsp) of milk thistle seeds may contain approx. ~300 mg of silymarin (~5%) . . as a rough guide to DIY doseage. (where 300mg is 0.3 of a gram . . 0.3 x 20 = 6 g).
The optimal dosing range appears to be 140-420mg of standardized silymarin daily . . So the 6 grams of ground seed, as a tea or however, would be a safe DIY daily dose over the stipulated treatment period.
I think it's important to know how to relate to and use natural plant medicines ourselves. They are a divine gift . . if we trust to accept it.
Awesome post! Started milk thistle and dandelion tea (organic, seed, leaf, root as recommended) and drink 12oz a day, 5 days a week and during my two 18-20 hour fast days each week to detox my NAFLD. Stopped all allergy meds about 5 weeks ago (horrible allergies to everything here in Florida that had a sudden onset about time I went into perimenopause). Balancing my natural anti inflammatories (estrogen, progesterone and testosterone) with bio identical HRT and this tea and fasting regiment and I am back to how I was in mid 30s…at 55yo! My insulin resistance is gone and all inflammatory markers (ferritin) and AST, etc. all back in healthy range. It all works together symbolically…like God designed our bodies to operate in the first place. Oh - and drop the alcohol…doesn’t do us any good and big sleep disrupter!
Nice Cara you are living it! Direct experience of knowing that allergies are the expression of a challenged liver is an amazing revelation. I am so glad you're doing well and have connected these critical dots.
USA - in state of Florida…hard to find a good provider here who will do testosterone for women, too, but my functional medicine nurse practitioner is amazing! He works with me for how I feel and symptom relief instead of looking at a lab number/range as our target for hormone ration optimization.
Mountain Rose Herbs is a good company as far as their purity testing. I buy milk thistle capsules there. The only downside is shipping is $10 even if you buy one thing. If you live in Midwest where it grows wild, you can pick it, dry it and make your own capsules, or make tea with it - steep it with lemon balm and mint, it’s delicious like that.
"Nature's Sunshine" is American owned and do all their own high quality testing. Everything that doesn't pass their testing is sold off to other companies.
You have to go online. I have only a seen a few small herb stores that carry it.
Love this precise info, with multiple angles of delivery--from metaphor to hard data. This is a beautiful and comprehensive picture of Milk Thistle's healing capacity. I particularly loved the line "orchestrates a three-phase detoxification symphony."
In TCM, the Liver is known as the "emotional" Seat of "Anger"....No wonder why, Peace is so hard to find in today's World !?!?!?!?! Very good post by the way !!!!!
A lot of illuminating and great advice except for one thing-A direct recommendation of where a person can find out who produces the best available and most potent supplement available to consumers.
My son is taking part in “ Sober October” which is refraining from alcohol for the month of October. I may join him and add a detox using milk thistle. Thank you for the in-depth treatise.
Great article, but not all new knowledge for me. I can testify to the healing properties of milk thistle, having been infected with hepatitis C for more than 30 years. In 1983 I was diagnosed with "non A - non B" hepatitis, when I entered into drug abuse treatment. They didn't even have a name for the disease yet, and the only medical option was treatment with daily interferon shots at a hospital, and a year or so of misery. Most family doctors had no idea what was causing my elevated liver enzymes, but I also knew several other people with the same symptoms. I did stop doing things that led to me catching this, and as the years went by several of my friends who were involved in the same thing back then died of liver cancer before and after 2000. I learned about Thisilyn brand milk thistle extract in the late 1980s. When I could afford it, I would take it, as my income went up, I took it more often, and when I couldn't afford Thisilyn, I found lower cost milk thistle products so I was always taking it daily. This was not under any type of professional medical supervision. Back in those years, until the 2015, in my 50's did I start regularly getting checkups. In 2015, I got a job with good insurance, and got Harvoni prescribed, my first real lesson in big pharma greed. For my insurance company to cover the $43,000.00 monthly cost of the prescription to cure Hep C, for 3 months, I had to extensively examined and then the gastroenterologist, had to lie to the insurance company and tell them I would need a transplant without the drug. Even when they had a cure for hep C, people couldn't all get it. In reality, the doctor told me that truthfully, my liver was in pretty good shape for 30 years of hep C. I didn't care that they lied, I got my cure. I stopped taking Thisilyn, after getting cured of Hep C, but reading this article has informed me about a few things I didn't know, and considering I do still use alcohol frequently, I am going to begin taking milk thistle in some form again, and considering growing it at home in one of my gardens, once I research the growing needs of the plant. Thank you for the article!
Hello! Great post. I cured my "seasonal" allergies with NAC. That is how I figured out it my allergies were a symptom of my liver! I recently tried milk thistle (again - Now Brand with purple cap) and ended with an allergic reaction! While I would consider it mild to moderate, ie. No anaphylaxis, I was very inflamed. My acupuncturist advised that those with seasonal allergies should NOT take milk thistle and use dandelion as it is edible. Thought I would share. As a side note, in treating my milk thistle overload I was drawn to epsom salt baths... turns out magnesium is a natural antihistamine. As inflamed as I was, a hot bath was decreasing my symptoms.
My 10 lb. Weenie dog has, what I believe to be Mast Cell tumor, he’s a rescue, 14 yrs old, doc didn’t want to operate. Older dogs not good candidates for anesthesia. And historically, tumors can/will return. Has happened to me 2 times after surgeries on dogs. Roo Has bad teeth as well. Palliative care. So, one liver enzyme was concerning, high. I started him on milk thistle. Perhaps not consistently enough. I’ll revisit. BTW, vet did offer something to stop liver enzyme from getting worse, hopefully. It was a nutraceutical, milk thistle! She is not a holistic vet! Dosage I’ve used is 50 mg. Brand has phospholipid and I add coconut oil too. Tumor is growing but it’s been a year. Roo eats well, lives a good life.
Unfortunately, this article leaves a lot to be desired. It comes across more as promotion for milk thistle than providing the evidence and data that support the broad claims such as "liver cleanse' and detoxification. I am still left wondering, so what the hell should I use milk thistle for and do I take it as a preventative or treatment for a disease I already have? The word "detox" is overused in general society in my opinion....the ONLY thing that matters is WHAT SPECIFIC DISEASE/AILMENT do you have? These diseases/ailments MAY actually be caused by toxic substances in your body (I don't dispute that), but I need to see a specific mechanism-of-action for any treatment and how it impacts the specific toxin you are trying to get rid of. E.g., in a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical study it was shown that 10 mg of X decreased Toxin A and Toxin B (at which time points?) and this ultimately led to improved symptoms that were deemed clinically meaningful and statistically significant.
Average folk, even academics, don’t have the means/resources/time to carry out such thorough testing - but we can do our own body cleanse and start using such natural products to then record any beneficial effects, tweaking the dosages for optimal effect. And the comments here give at least three recommended makers of milk thistle capsules etc to try out - much thanks to everyone.
Milk thistle seed provides a significant hepatoprotective benefit meaning it will improve liver function over time by protecting it from the environmental assault. Firstly though, you have to improve the conditions for your liver function. After that would be the time to use milk thistle. I hope that helps you a little bit.
So what I think you are saying is this: If you have some sort of condition that is negatively impacting your liver (e.g., drinking alcohol), your liver function will improve if you stop drinking alcohol AND you take milk thistle. If that is correct, then how would you know which one is causing the improved liver function - stopping alcohol OR milk thistle? Has there ever been a study conducted that showed significantly improved liver function in individuals taking milk thistle + stopping the environmental assault vs. individuals who just stopped the environmental assault WITHOUT using milk thistle? If not, then it just seems like anecdotal evidence that is not convincing.
I encourage you to dig deeper on the topic yourself if you want to answer those questions! Milk thistle is widely researched and I also suggest studying its phytochemistry. Liver function of course improves when you remove alcohol, for example. What I outlined is that milk thistle functions as a protective remedy and is going to have the best impact for someone who has already cleansed the liver which is most effectively done through other remedies and means.
Milk thistle is widely misunderstood. Its power is in its hepatoprotective qualities which you outlined so well in this article. Taking milk thistle fortifies the liver and protects it. A wonder plant ally to incoprorare after a signigicant revitalization or healing of the liver.
I also want to note, and add, that non-alcoholic fatty liver responds incredibly well to the significant reduction of carbohydrate intake. If someone were to dramatically alter their metabolism by cutting carbohydrates below the level of ketone production, the liver will bounce back incredibly.
Thanks for this sweet piece to correct the record with clarity!
Lots of info to take in, but this is a huge change in the approach to help doctors and patients deal with conditions they can’t understand or know how to improve.
I started taking Milk Thistle in the early 90's. I used to suffer from sever allergies every spring and fall, with sinus infections that would turn into bronchitis. Twice a year I would end up on antibiotics.
Now, I can't even remember the last time I had a sinus infection or bronchitis. I rarely get sick at all.
What brand worked for you?
I like "Nature's Truth."
It's manufactured in New York.
In what form? How often just allergy season? Thanks for the testimonial. Do you pick, dry and make tea or ?
I take one 1,000 mg. capsule daily (normal schedule is 6 days on, one day off for most herbs) of "Nature's Truth" brand Milk Thistle Seed.
I find "Nature's Truth" is the best brand for all herbs and supplements.
He references Life Extension Brand?
Is that 2.5 the recommended? 400 mg? I have to reread the article. Thanks
1,000 mg. is what has worked best for me.
It's always best to start out with the lower doses, then go from there.
I have been taking it for a long time.
According to "The Chopra Center Herbal Handbook," by Deepak Chopra, M.D. and David Simon, M.D., p. 178. 2000.
"The usual therapeutic dose is between 300 and 800 mg. of silymarin per day in two or three divided doses."
Why are they the best brand?
"Nature's Truth" is made in America, non-GMO, and free of gluten, wheat, yeast, milk, lactose, soy, Artificial colors, Artificial flavors, Artificial sweeteners, and preservatives.
Powerful work, Unbekoming — you took milk thistle far beyond the “liver cleanse” clichés and showed how it rewires the whole terrain. The transplant-allergy anomaly is a brilliant hook, one of those signals that makes you sit up and rethink the body as an intelligent field, not just plumbing.
I write along similar lines at The Cosmic Onion — chasing those hidden connections where ancient plant allies and modern anomalies meet. Wolves sniff the same trail from different angles. Glad to see you out front with such clarity. Awooo.
Excellent article - Worth considering is our option and capacity to grow Milk Thistle through to seed, and harvest as home-grown herbal medication - a beautiful and distinctive plant . . from the right distance. Dry the ripe flowers and blow-torch off all the spikey bits to get to the seeds, which are safely protected from the flames.
Natural milk thistle seeds contain approximately 3% to 6% silymarin by weight. Drought stress increases silymarin content, especially the more active silybin fraction. While containing only 2-5% silymarin, whole herb powders provide the complete plant matrix including beneficial microbes and cofactors that support terrain medicine principles.
So . . 6 grams (a heaped tsp) of milk thistle seeds may contain approx. ~300 mg of silymarin (~5%) . . as a rough guide to DIY doseage. (where 300mg is 0.3 of a gram . . 0.3 x 20 = 6 g).
The optimal dosing range appears to be 140-420mg of standardized silymarin daily . . So the 6 grams of ground seed, as a tea or however, would be a safe DIY daily dose over the stipulated treatment period.
I think it's important to know how to relate to and use natural plant medicines ourselves. They are a divine gift . . if we trust to accept it.
Awesome post! Started milk thistle and dandelion tea (organic, seed, leaf, root as recommended) and drink 12oz a day, 5 days a week and during my two 18-20 hour fast days each week to detox my NAFLD. Stopped all allergy meds about 5 weeks ago (horrible allergies to everything here in Florida that had a sudden onset about time I went into perimenopause). Balancing my natural anti inflammatories (estrogen, progesterone and testosterone) with bio identical HRT and this tea and fasting regiment and I am back to how I was in mid 30s…at 55yo! My insulin resistance is gone and all inflammatory markers (ferritin) and AST, etc. all back in healthy range. It all works together symbolically…like God designed our bodies to operate in the first place. Oh - and drop the alcohol…doesn’t do us any good and big sleep disrupter!
Nice Cara you are living it! Direct experience of knowing that allergies are the expression of a challenged liver is an amazing revelation. I am so glad you're doing well and have connected these critical dots.
AMEN
Which country are you in I'm having trouble getting testosterone from my doctor, here in the UK.
USA - in state of Florida…hard to find a good provider here who will do testosterone for women, too, but my functional medicine nurse practitioner is amazing! He works with me for how I feel and symptom relief instead of looking at a lab number/range as our target for hormone ration optimization.
Ok so most in the market have half let's say of the content.
Low dose is beneficial, or one can take more.
But then the contamination issue which is common among many supplements.
So where does one get a properly tested source?
Manufacturers can claim passing tests and we're not going to spend big money on testing ones to make sure they're legit.
Mountain Rose Herbs is a good company as far as their purity testing. I buy milk thistle capsules there. The only downside is shipping is $10 even if you buy one thing. If you live in Midwest where it grows wild, you can pick it, dry it and make your own capsules, or make tea with it - steep it with lemon balm and mint, it’s delicious like that.
"Nature's Sunshine" is American owned and do all their own high quality testing. Everything that doesn't pass their testing is sold off to other companies.
You have to go online. I have only a seen a few small herb stores that carry it.
Iherb.com
Love this precise info, with multiple angles of delivery--from metaphor to hard data. This is a beautiful and comprehensive picture of Milk Thistle's healing capacity. I particularly loved the line "orchestrates a three-phase detoxification symphony."
In TCM, the Liver is known as the "emotional" Seat of "Anger"....No wonder why, Peace is so hard to find in today's World !?!?!?!?! Very good post by the way !!!!!
Amen! I find this fascinating as well! The liver processes all our emotions.
A lot of illuminating and great advice except for one thing-A direct recommendation of where a person can find out who produces the best available and most potent supplement available to consumers.
A couple of reader resources mentioned above.
He does reference Life Extension Brand.
Iherb.com
My son is taking part in “ Sober October” which is refraining from alcohol for the month of October. I may join him and add a detox using milk thistle. Thank you for the in-depth treatise.
Great article, but not all new knowledge for me. I can testify to the healing properties of milk thistle, having been infected with hepatitis C for more than 30 years. In 1983 I was diagnosed with "non A - non B" hepatitis, when I entered into drug abuse treatment. They didn't even have a name for the disease yet, and the only medical option was treatment with daily interferon shots at a hospital, and a year or so of misery. Most family doctors had no idea what was causing my elevated liver enzymes, but I also knew several other people with the same symptoms. I did stop doing things that led to me catching this, and as the years went by several of my friends who were involved in the same thing back then died of liver cancer before and after 2000. I learned about Thisilyn brand milk thistle extract in the late 1980s. When I could afford it, I would take it, as my income went up, I took it more often, and when I couldn't afford Thisilyn, I found lower cost milk thistle products so I was always taking it daily. This was not under any type of professional medical supervision. Back in those years, until the 2015, in my 50's did I start regularly getting checkups. In 2015, I got a job with good insurance, and got Harvoni prescribed, my first real lesson in big pharma greed. For my insurance company to cover the $43,000.00 monthly cost of the prescription to cure Hep C, for 3 months, I had to extensively examined and then the gastroenterologist, had to lie to the insurance company and tell them I would need a transplant without the drug. Even when they had a cure for hep C, people couldn't all get it. In reality, the doctor told me that truthfully, my liver was in pretty good shape for 30 years of hep C. I didn't care that they lied, I got my cure. I stopped taking Thisilyn, after getting cured of Hep C, but reading this article has informed me about a few things I didn't know, and considering I do still use alcohol frequently, I am going to begin taking milk thistle in some form again, and considering growing it at home in one of my gardens, once I research the growing needs of the plant. Thank you for the article!
Beautiful writing, pertinent information. Gorgeous following. Re-Stacking this! ❣️
Hello! Great post. I cured my "seasonal" allergies with NAC. That is how I figured out it my allergies were a symptom of my liver! I recently tried milk thistle (again - Now Brand with purple cap) and ended with an allergic reaction! While I would consider it mild to moderate, ie. No anaphylaxis, I was very inflamed. My acupuncturist advised that those with seasonal allergies should NOT take milk thistle and use dandelion as it is edible. Thought I would share. As a side note, in treating my milk thistle overload I was drawn to epsom salt baths... turns out magnesium is a natural antihistamine. As inflamed as I was, a hot bath was decreasing my symptoms.
My 10 lb. Weenie dog has, what I believe to be Mast Cell tumor, he’s a rescue, 14 yrs old, doc didn’t want to operate. Older dogs not good candidates for anesthesia. And historically, tumors can/will return. Has happened to me 2 times after surgeries on dogs. Roo Has bad teeth as well. Palliative care. So, one liver enzyme was concerning, high. I started him on milk thistle. Perhaps not consistently enough. I’ll revisit. BTW, vet did offer something to stop liver enzyme from getting worse, hopefully. It was a nutraceutical, milk thistle! She is not a holistic vet! Dosage I’ve used is 50 mg. Brand has phospholipid and I add coconut oil too. Tumor is growing but it’s been a year. Roo eats well, lives a good life.
Unfortunately, this article leaves a lot to be desired. It comes across more as promotion for milk thistle than providing the evidence and data that support the broad claims such as "liver cleanse' and detoxification. I am still left wondering, so what the hell should I use milk thistle for and do I take it as a preventative or treatment for a disease I already have? The word "detox" is overused in general society in my opinion....the ONLY thing that matters is WHAT SPECIFIC DISEASE/AILMENT do you have? These diseases/ailments MAY actually be caused by toxic substances in your body (I don't dispute that), but I need to see a specific mechanism-of-action for any treatment and how it impacts the specific toxin you are trying to get rid of. E.g., in a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical study it was shown that 10 mg of X decreased Toxin A and Toxin B (at which time points?) and this ultimately led to improved symptoms that were deemed clinically meaningful and statistically significant.
Average folk, even academics, don’t have the means/resources/time to carry out such thorough testing - but we can do our own body cleanse and start using such natural products to then record any beneficial effects, tweaking the dosages for optimal effect. And the comments here give at least three recommended makers of milk thistle capsules etc to try out - much thanks to everyone.
Milk thistle seed provides a significant hepatoprotective benefit meaning it will improve liver function over time by protecting it from the environmental assault. Firstly though, you have to improve the conditions for your liver function. After that would be the time to use milk thistle. I hope that helps you a little bit.
So what I think you are saying is this: If you have some sort of condition that is negatively impacting your liver (e.g., drinking alcohol), your liver function will improve if you stop drinking alcohol AND you take milk thistle. If that is correct, then how would you know which one is causing the improved liver function - stopping alcohol OR milk thistle? Has there ever been a study conducted that showed significantly improved liver function in individuals taking milk thistle + stopping the environmental assault vs. individuals who just stopped the environmental assault WITHOUT using milk thistle? If not, then it just seems like anecdotal evidence that is not convincing.
I encourage you to dig deeper on the topic yourself if you want to answer those questions! Milk thistle is widely researched and I also suggest studying its phytochemistry. Liver function of course improves when you remove alcohol, for example. What I outlined is that milk thistle functions as a protective remedy and is going to have the best impact for someone who has already cleansed the liver which is most effectively done through other remedies and means.
Milk thistle is widely misunderstood. Its power is in its hepatoprotective qualities which you outlined so well in this article. Taking milk thistle fortifies the liver and protects it. A wonder plant ally to incoprorare after a signigicant revitalization or healing of the liver.
I also want to note, and add, that non-alcoholic fatty liver responds incredibly well to the significant reduction of carbohydrate intake. If someone were to dramatically alter their metabolism by cutting carbohydrates below the level of ketone production, the liver will bounce back incredibly.
Thanks for this sweet piece to correct the record with clarity!
Lots of info to take in, but this is a huge change in the approach to help doctors and patients deal with conditions they can’t understand or know how to improve.