Capsules, teas and tinctures featuring milk thistle are promoted for protection or repair of the liver. Illnesses potentially treated by the herb include cirrhosis, hepatitis and liver damage from mushroom poisoning. Your physician can determine whether the herbal cure is a suitable treatment for your health problems. But unless you learn which parts of the milk thistle are medicinal, as well as what milk thistle’s active compound is, you run the risk of buying a useless product from an unscrupulous herbalist.
Plant Description
A member of the thistle family, Silybum marianum can grow as tall as 10 feet. The herb’s flowers are burgundy to purple, with small, hard seeds. Milk thistle’s stems are spiny and support white-spotted, broad leaves that weep ”milk” when trodden upon or crushed. According to Drugs.com, the plant's other traditional names include St. Mary thistle, Marian thistle, holy thistle and lady's thistle. It is also sometimes called silybum.
Active Compound
Milk thistle’s level of effectiveness comes from silymarin, a collection of flavonoids with liver-reparative properties. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, researchers believe silymarin is effective because it has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, and because it both protects new liver cells and repairs damaged ones. People who are at risk for liver damage from alcohol or medications seem to benefit most from the silymarin compound.
Plant Part
Only the seeds of the milk thistle plant contain silymarin. Drugs.com notes that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not evaluate milk thistle. This lack of regulation makes it possible for unscrupulous dealers to offer milk thistle that contains little or none of the silymarin-rich seeds. A product labeled “milk thistle” that consists almost exclusively of leaves and stems may technically be a milk thistle supplement. But that product will have virtually none of the plant’s therapeutic value because milk thistle's medicinal properties exist in its seeds.
Standardization
The University of Maryland Medical Center recommends buying milk thistle from a reputable herbal manufacturer. The product’s label should indicate that the product is standardized to contain 70 to 80 percent silymarin. This standardization ensures that even if the product uses other plant parts or filler ingredients, the majority of it comes from the medicinally valuable seeds.
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