Liver, taken from live, is an important organ in our bodies: It helps digest fats and promotes digestion by aiding in the manufacture of bile, and also raises the body's ability to detoxify against the toxins. Some toxins like nicotine, alcohol and carbon monoxide etc. The liver can decompose those toxins into something non-toxic to humans. In addition, the liver is also a container for fat-soluble vitamins, like vitamin A, D, E and K. Therefore, it’s urgent to protect our livers.
The most common liver diseases are alcoholic hepatitis, acute hepatitis, cirrhosis, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, liver cancer etc. While milk thistle, is well-known for preventing and treating liver diseases. The effective component in milk thistle is silymarin which mainly found in milk thistle’s fruits, seeds and leaves. Silymarin is a kind of flavonolignans, which mainly includes silibinin, silydianin and silvchristine. Silibinin has the best effect, and it’s also the best substance for protecting livers in the world.
About the curative effect of milk thistle, there are two stories can prove it. Scientists infected mice with lethal doses of toxin from death cap (a kind of poison mushroom), and then give them some milk thistle to eat. What is astonishing is none of the mice were dead and some of them only got a little bit liver damage. The mushroom pickers in Germany always use milk thistle to detoxify poison mushroom, and they have been doing it for a long time. Before they know this herb, the mushroom picker always mix the mushroom they want with another poison mushroom-Amanita phalloides. It looks exactly like the non-toxin mushrooms and if anyone eats it will lead to hepatic failure and die fast. Later when they found milk thistle and eat it before they pick mushrooms, even if they eat poison mushrooms by mistake, they will not die. It’s said that many hospitals in Germany are using milk thistle extract to make injections to cure patients who took poison mushrooms by mistake.
Milk thistle has been using for at least 2000 years to cure liver diseases. The effective component silymarin is good for liver index like GOT and GPT’s increasing. If you take it along with vitamin B you will have even better effects. Therefore, milk thistle is not only good for patients who have liver diseases, but also good for people who always exposure to toxic substances at work, such as chemical plants, manufacturing industries or people who drink or smoke a lot, people live close to contaminated area etc.
肝的英文Liver取自生命Live,對維持身體健康占了極重要的角色：它所制造的膽汁是分解脂肪所必須，且可將進入血液的毒素解毒。如尼古丁、酒精和一氧化碳等污染物，肝髒會把這危害人體的物質分解成對人體較無害的東西。此外，肝髒也是儲存脂溶性維生素A、D、E和K的地方。因此，保護肝臟健康是刻不容緩的重要事情。
常見的肝臟疾病包括酒精性肝炎、急性肝炎、肝硬化(纖維化)，Ｂ肝、Ｃ肝、肝癌等等，而苦薊草，是公認的預防和治療肝病的良藥。苦薊草，也稱奶薊，其有效成分是水飞蓟素(Silymarin)主要存在於苦薊草的果實、種子、葉片當中。水飞蓟素是一種黃酮木酚質(Flavonolignans)，主要包括奶薊賓(Silibinin、Silydianin、SiIvchristine)。其他黃酮木酚質還包括Silybum(包含Silandrin、Silyhermin、Silymonin)。所有的成分當中，以奶薊賓的效果最佳，它是目前世界上所發現最具肝疾療效與保肝功能的物質。
關於苦薊草的療效，有兩個故事可以充分證明這一點。科學家把致死性劑量的，從毒菇中提取的毒素注入老鼠體內，幾分鐘之內給予苦薊草，不但老鼠不會死亡，而且肝臟僅受微小傷害。而德國采菇工作者，使用Milk Thistle的草藥﹐來解毒菇之毒，已經有相當長的歷史。在他們還不知道服用這種藥草之前，采菇人經常會誤采一種劇毒菇─ Amanita phalloides長得和一般無毒菇類很像﹐誤食劇毒菇Amanita phalloides會造成肝衰竭迅速死亡﹐後來在采菇人事先服用了這種草藥後﹐即使再攝食毒菇也不會中毒（草藥的純度與劑量是效果的關鍵）。據悉，德國的醫院已經使用苦薊草的萃取物，做成注射藥劑，在急診室施打在誤食毒菇的病患身上。
苦薊草是一種已爲至少2000年的治療肝膽疾病使用中藥， 其中的有效成分水飞蓟素對於輕度或是暫時性肝指數GOT、GPT的上升通常有很好的效果，配合維生素B群使用，恢複狀況會更好。因此苦薊草不僅適合罹患肝失調的人士服用，隻要工作上會接觸到任何有毒物質的人士，例如化學工廠、制造業或美容院的員工，經常飲酒、吸煙的人士，以及住在有污染地區的居民都適合食用。
