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I lurk here a lot but don't really post. I just thought I would post here to see if anybody is familiar with all this. I learned about 3 months ago that I have cirrhosis of the liver, probably caused by alcohol use. I never thought I drank that much -- maybe 4 or 5 beers a night -- but I had such a habit for many years. I had no warning of such a problem, and only learned about it when my abdomen started becoming oddly swollen, and uncomfortable. Finally, when I was looking like a pregnant woman (literally},...

Tissue with wound-like conditions allows tumors to grow and spread. In mouse lung cancer cells, treatment with silibinin, a major component of milk thistle, removed the molecular billboards that signal these wound-like conditions and so stopped the spread of these lung cancers, according to a recent study published in the journal Molecular Carcinogenesis. Though the natural extract has been used for more than 2,000 years, mostly to treat disorders of the liver and gallbladder, this is one of the first carefully controlled and reported studies to find benefit. Here is how it works:Basically, in a cell there can be a...

A first-aid kit found on a 2,000-year-old shipwreck has provided a remarkable insight into the medicines concocted by ancient physicians to cure sailors of dysentery and other ailments. A wooden chest discovered on board the vessel contained pills made of ground-up vegetables, herbs and plants such as celery, onions, carrots, cabbage, alfalfa and chestnuts – all ingredients referred to in classical medical texts. The tablets, which were so well sealed that they miraculously survived being under water for more than two millennia, also contain extracts of parsley, nasturtium, radish, yarrow and hibiscus. They were found in 136 tin-lined wooden vials...

Silibinin, a drug derived from milk thistle, destroys lung cancer in mice, investigators at the University of Colorado, Denver report in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Lead investigator Dr. Rana P. Singh told Reuters Health, "We have been studying milk thistle components, silymarin and silibinin, to examine their efficacy and mechanisms against different...cancers for over a decade." In the current study, Singh's team injected mice with a chemical called urethane to induce lung cancer. The animals then received diets containing different doses of silibinin. "We obtained pure silibinin from Sigma Chemical Co., and silibinin diets were commercially prepared...