Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a product I have been using for over three years now, ever since I received a diagnosis of medication induced liver damage. I went in because I was experiencing symptoms that I thought might be related to gall bladder (I had a change in stool color), and blood tests and follow up scans told a very different story. At the time I met with my GI specialist, she indicated to me that at that time, the best they were hoping for at my year follow up was to see that the progress had stopped, they were not expecting reversal. But I was given some dietary guidelines that they wanted me to follow (low fat, low cholesterol, low sodium, low sugar), as well as a recommendation that I loose a bit of weight, because I was carrying a few extra pounds at that time. This was a supplement I had started before she and I met (because the initial diagnosis came from my PCP), but that was approved as a positive supportive measure. Just as an FYI if you are looking at this product and are overweight, even a decrease in bodyweight of 10% if you are just being treated for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease can be tremendously helpful, but the more you clean up your act, including 30 minutes of cardio 6 days a week, the better your chances are of healing. So the studies on Milk Thistle are that it can be effective in reducing and reversing liver toxins for those exposed to industrial toxins and in some cases alcohol. It has also shown some usefulness in Hepatitis. Like many studies, there are detractors, and so the general guidance from the medical community remains that this "may" be beneficial. Anecdotally, for me, I walked away from my year follow up scan with a liver that looked completely normal on the scan and blood work that was also totally normal. Now, I also made a ton of other changes. I got off of any and every medication that processed through the liver. I stopped dying my hair, because many hair dyes have chemicals that are processed through the liver. I followed that super strict diet and I am still doing it to this day. So from the scientific perspective, one can't really say that this was necessarily the magic ingredient. Realistically, probably there were many things that contributed to my outcome. And yet, I think there's a reason energy drink manufacturers have started adding this stuff to their formularies. They know their cocktail of high B vitamins and in some cases artificial sweeteners has been implicated in liver toxicity, and there is enough evidence out there to support the efficacy of milk thistle in counteracting that type of damage. So for me, do I think this is something worth trying for you if you are facing a liver disease diagnosis? For sure, absolutely. But I also recommend you not use it to try and keep up whatever behaviors you were doing that got you there. You only have one liver, and you're not guaranteed another. Transplanting is never a guarantee, and there are risks that go along with that and the anti-rejection meds that for me, I was willing to do anything to avoid going there. And whenever I have a day when all this virtuous dining gets hard, I think about the faces of my two children and what I would tell them if I stopped doing these things. That's my motivator. So I also recommend finding one of those and holding on to it tight. And this supplement certainly won't hurt, and may actually help you in your fight. Best of luck to you.