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Milk Thistle (PDQ®)
Patient Version
Health Professional Version
Last Modified:
06/07/2007
Overview
Questions and Answers About Milk Thistle
Changes to This Summary (06/07/2007)
General CAM Information
Evaluation of CAM Approaches
Questions to Ask Your Health Care Provider About CAM
To Learn More About CAM
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Overview
Milk thistle
is a plant whose fruit and seeds are used to make remedies for
liver
and
bile duct
ailments (see
Question 1
).
The active ingredient found in milk thistle is
silymarin
, an
antioxidant
that protects against
cell
damage (see
Question 1
).
Milk thistle has been studied in laboratory
cell lines
and animal
tumors
for its potential to make
chemotherapy
less
toxic
and more effective, and to slow the growth of
cancer
cells (see
Question 3
and
Question 5
).
Milk thistle is usually taken in
capsules
or tablets (see
Question 4
).
No
clinical trials
using milk thistle or its active
compounds
in patients with cancer have been published (see
Question 6
).
Very few bad
side effects
from the use of milk thistle or silymarin have been reported (see
Question 7
).
It is not known if milk thistle may make anticancer medications or other
drugs
more or less effective when taken with them (see
Question 7
).
The
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
has not approved the use of milk thistle as a treatment for cancer or any other medical condition (see
Question 8
).
Milk thistle is available in the United States as an
herbal
dietary supplement
(see
Question 8
).
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