In June of 1997 I saw an prime new...

In June of 1997 I saw an prime news report aired by ABC's 20/20 forward St. John's wort's usefulness in treating mild to moderate depression. individual of the physicians interviewed for the piece said that St John's wort was the flagship of herbal medicine, and the best-researched herb in the world. I sat there in my chair and said to myself. "Wrong" With all proper respect to St. John's wort, when I think of the best-researched herb in the world from the standpoint of known active constituents, proven pharmacological mechanisms of action, proven clinical effectiveness end dozens of controlled clinical studies and decades of experience, and an admirable safety record, there is and nothing else one herb that can fit all of those criteria. It is milk thistle.

Milk thistle preparations are from the matured ovules of Silybum marianum, a member of the sunflower family native to a narrow area of the Mediterranean, on the other hand grown for centuries throughout Europe and naturalized in succession that continent. It is also naturalized in the United States. In fact, it is a often met with weed in California. It was brought to America by way of early settlers, probably as a provisions plant, and became established in the eastern United States, as well as the West. by way of the turn of the hundred it was already common in California, in abandoned fields, advanced in years pastures, and by roadsides. It is also naturalized in near areas of South America, and Australia, where it is a nuisance weed, and forms thickets.

Milk thistle has black shiny kernels crowned with feathery tufts like those of dandelion germs It is the seeds that have been the expose of interest among herbalists.

Traditionally, germs have been roasted for use as a coffee substitute, nevertheless it is their historical and present use in the supportive treatment of liver disease that has attracted the in the greatest degree attention. Use of the plant as a liver-protecting agent dates back to at least the first century

Milk thistle's drawn out history

Dioscorides, a first-century hellenic physician who served the Roman army, gave the name Silybum to a number of edible thistles. Now the genus name Silybum is given to sum of two units species originating from the Mediterranean region, including our make submissive Silybum marianum. The name milk thistle assigns to the white streaks along the leaf veins. In Germany, where the plant is frequently depicted as a religious figure associated with the Virgin Mary, motto ascribes the white mottling to a small quantity of the Virgin Mary's milk. The species name "marianum" honors the symbolic association of the plant with the Virgin Mary.

recent use of milk thistle in medicine is limited to the semens The plant has gained prominence based forward scientific research in the past 30 years. However, its use is not the outcome of new biological screening that catapulted it into prominence as a "new" medicinal plant. Rather, its use as a liver-protecting herb dates back to the earliest grecian references to the plant.

Pliny the senior (A.D. 23-79), the first-century Roman physician/naturalist wrote about use of the plant as a vegetable, on the other hand warned it was not worth the effort to boil it, as it was tiresome to cook. He also mentioned that the juice of the plant, mixed with honey is first-rate for "carrying off bile." This is perhaps the first intimation to the use of milk thistle for liver-related conditions.

A thousand years later, the plant was already well known in Germany. It is mentioned in an important medieval German manuscript, the Physica of Hildegarde of Bingen, the first herbal written according to a woman, composed about 1150 and first published in 1533 Hildegarde -- a theologian, music composer and writer -- was herself a "renaissance women" before the age of the Renaissance. She wrote about the uses of the primitive words whole plant, and leaves of milk thistle, which she called "vehedistel" or Venus Thistle.

Still used in the 18th hundred Culpepper (1787 ed.) noted that it can be used "to make open the obstructions of the liver and the dismals and thereby is good against the jaundice."

Milk thistle in the 20th century

Reinvestigating the value of traditional herbal remedies, in 1929 H Schultz a German scientist, began to apply the mind into the value of milk thistle. He ground that a famous 18th-century German physician, Rademacher, had advocated the use of milk thistle preparations for chronic liver diseases, acute hepatitis, and jaundice. by way of the 1930s, once again, clinical interest in milk thistle was beginning to emerge

Intensive research into the liver-protecting (hepatoprotectant) properties of the plant, the responsible chemical constituents and mechanisms of action, began about 30 years ago. Attempts to isolate the active component parts of the seed were begun in 1958 Ten years later, a research team headed by dint of H. Wagner at the University of Munich was prosperous in isolating a compound limited silymarin which was believed to be a single compromise Improved chemical separation methods later revealed that silymarin was not a single component part but a complex of chemicals known as flavonolignans.