Health Benefits Of Milk Thistle – A Comprehensive Look

Hormonal Balance

By enhancing liver health and function, milk thistle can indirectly help to balance hormonal levels in the body. It is thus a potentially helpful herb for hormone-related health conditions like premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and prostate enlargement. [11]

Milk thistle also promotes the production of some hormones in the body. [3]

Immunity Boost

Milk thistle can help boost impaired immune systems. [4]

Intestinal Inflammation

Milk thistle helps to alleviate intestinal inflammation [3], and this herb has been used for inflammatory bowel disorders. [4]

See also the section for “Crohn‘s Disease” above.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

Milk thistle helps relieve constipation through the stimulation of increased bile production, and this helps those who are suffering from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). [3]

Kidney Health and Kidney Protection

Milk thistle may help protect the kidneys to some degree. [5][4]

And milk thistle extract can help stimulate the regeneration of kidney cells. [11]

In research carried out on mice, it was found that large doses of silibinin completely protected the animals from kidney damage when they were treated with cisplatin (Platinol), a chemotherapy drug. [3]

Liver Health and Liver Ailments / Diseases

The health benefits of milk thistle on the liver are quickly summarized here. To read in more detail about how milk thistle improves liver health and about the various liver disorders and conditions which milk thistle can help with, click here.

Milk thistle is well-known and widely used for helping with and treating various liver disorders, diseases and conditions. These include:

• liver cirrhosis, including alcoholic cirrhosis
• liver poisoning
• hepatitis – viral hepatitis or alcoholic hepatitis, hepatitis B or C
• sluggish liver
• liver congestion
• fatty liver
• jaundice
• and other liver ailments and issues which are related to drug use and alcoholism

Milk thistle also helps to:

• protect the liver from damage
• boost overall liver health and function
• regenerate liver cells
• give the liver a glutathione boost
• detoxify the liver
• improve recovery from substance addiction, notably drugs and alcohol
• protect against many prescription medications which potentially harm the liver
• prevent fibrosis

To read about these milk thistle liver benefits in more detail, click here.

Parkinson‘s Disease

Persons who suffer from Parkinson’s disease tend to experience issues with their digestive system, for example heartburn and constipation, and milk thistle can help to alleviate these symptoms. Further, milk thistle helps to maintain the amount of glutathione in the body, and this antioxidant helps to reduce the rate of progress of this condition. [3]

Poisoning

Milk thistle offers protection against long-term use of prescription medication. [11]

It also provides help against deathcap mushroom poisoning. There were 49 reported cases of persons who were hit by deathcap mushroom poisoning and all of them recovered after receiving an inject-able form of silibin, even though help came as late as 36 hours after incident. [11]

Mark Stengler, ND, recommends milk thistle for persons who are exposed to harmful toxins at work, for example a welder. He also recommends milk thistle extract for cancer patients who are undergoing chemotherapy or radiation treatments. [11]

Learn more about how milk thistle protects against various types of toxic poisoning by reading about the health benefits of milk thistle on the liver.

Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS)

Milk thistle has been used to help with premenstrual syndrome (PMS). [1]

Prostate Enlargement

Prostate enlargement is another hormone-related health condition which could benefit from milk thistle’s liver enhancing capabilities. [11]

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