Milk thistle (Silybum marianum) has been used for thousands of years as a liver detoxifier and daily health tonic. In addition to liver health, this herb helps with many health conditions such as preventing abnormal cell growth, lowering inflammation, boosting your immune system and detoxing heavy metals.
Liver Protection
The most common use of milk thistle is for liver problems. Milk thistle not only helps protect your liver, but also assists in healing by encouraging new cell growth. Milk thistle’s active ingredient is silymarin which is extracted from the seeds, this is where the healing power resides.
This unique flavonoid complex called silymarin contains silybin, silydianin, and silychrisin offers protection and repair, helping regenerate liver cells damaged by toxic substances such as drugs, alcohol and aspirin. It may also prevent conditions like fatty liver syndrome, jaundice, and hepatitis.
This herb also removes the harmful effects of pesticides in our food, heavy metals in our water and the pollution in our air.
It’s An Antioxidant
Silymarin is an antioxidant so it boosts your immune system, fights DNA damage and reverses tumor growth. This herb protects against breast cancer, lung cancer and prostate cancer among several other cancers. Because of its antioxidant properties milk thistle is useful in alleviating symptoms of hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver.
Milk thistle’s antioxidant capabilities helps fight free radical damage by reducing free radical production, this slows down skin aging. Researchers found in a study that milk thistle has anti-aging effects on human skin cells in a laboratory environment. Slowing the aging process applies to both the surface of your skin and your organs, as antioxidants can protect your body from chronic disease. When you consume milk thistle, it’s an easy way to prevent skin cancer and skin damage, such as acne, dark spots, wrinkles, lines and discoloration.
Helps Prevent Gallstones
The liver is a major digestive organ, helping process nutrients and toxins entering our body through our food, water and air.
The liver works closely with the gallbladder, pancreas, intestines and kidneys to improve liver health, they are all digestive organs and milk thistle is able to help prevent gallstones and kidney stones.
Milk thistle’s ability to increase bile flow, protects against liver conditions like nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and promotes liver detoxification, makes it useful in the prevention of gallstones.
Controls Cholesterol
Milk thistle is a powerful anti-inflammatory, reducing inflammation which helps lower high cholesterol. High cholesterol can lead to heart disease and possibly a stroke. High cholesterol is a serious problem of giant proportions in the United States due to our lifestyle and the unhealthy standard American diet. Milk thistle also helps filter out toxins from the blood, reducing oxidative stress damage in the arteries.
Helps Weight Loss
Your liver is important for metabolizing fat and purifying your blood. Silymarin in milk thistle boosts liver action, metabolizing fat faster making it easier for us to release unwanted weight. Your body forms fat cells around toxins to protect your vital organs. The more toxins you have, the more difficult it will be for you to release weight. This is why so many people plateau. Weight loss is accelerated when toxins are removed and your liver is working at optimum efficiency.
Some people have found that when milk thistle tea is ingested while eating a meal, it assists your gallbladder and liver in digesting food and removing waste products. This leads your body to running at a higher efficiency as well as processing fat faster. When your body is running at a higher efficiency, it is easier to keep weight off and release those unwanted extra pounds.
Milk thistle’s anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties boast powerful aids to promote health and disease prevention. Our liver is responsible for performing a number of essential detoxifying and healing functions. The condition of our blood throughout our whole body is mostly reliant on the health of our liver.
