Read information below. There was also a little bit of info on the Mayo Clinic website. Now, I am not posting the below and touting Milk Thistle as a cure for liver cancer, but I do know this, when my mother had end stage Cirrhosis due to auto- immune liver disease, her liver specialist at the Oregon Health Science Center stated that over 85% of his patients were on Milk Thistle. He felt it was a good idea. My mother did not pass due to her liver disease, but due to Parkinsons.
The Cancer Treatment Centers of America use a holistic approach to treating cancer, and I think more studies definitely need to be done on Naturopathic medicines along side conventional medicines and conventional cancer treatments. My father's nurologist believes in naturopathic medicines. It's very sad when conventional Doctors are closed minded by saying Naturopathic medicines are useless or worthless. Thank goodness the medical staff at Cancer treatment Center of America have seen the value of a holistic approach to treating cancer.Are there other cancer treatment centers that treat cancer in a holistic manner?
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Milk thistle, a popular
folk remedy for liver disease, may also help prevent liver cancer,
laboratory research suggests.
"This is just the very early stage of study, but it tells us
that we really need to do further studies" to see if milk thistle
could have a role in liver cancer prevention, Dr. Ke-Qin Hu of the
University of California, Irvine told Reuters Health.
An estimated 10 percent of patients with liver disease take milk
thistle, which is available over the counter and inexpensive, Hu
said. Studies conducted in Europe and Japan have shown it can help
protect the liver from injury due to alcohol or drug use. Milk
thistle is also reported to be safe and well tolerated.
Hu and his colleagues previously demonstrated that silibinin --
the active component of milk thistle -- reduced the growth of liver
cancer cells in a Petri dish. To better understand silibinin's
mechanism of action, the researchers tested the effects of
different doses of the compound on four liver cancer cell
lines.
Silibinin reduced the growth of all four liver cancer cell
lines, Hu and his team found, by both promoting apoptosis, or cell
suicide, and inhibiting proliferation.
Silibinin also reduced the expression of genes that promote
blood vessel formation, which is important because tumors need a
blood supply in order to grow.
"Our results ... provide a rationale to further test if milk
thistle, or silibinin more specifically, could be used for liver
cancer prevention," Hu said.
SOURCE: World Journal of Gastroenterology,
October 28, 2007.