Why do I feel better with Milk Thistle?

[dmholmes]

So my typical day has been ~10 hours sleep at night, 7.5 pre-CFS, and naps or crashes during the day requiring more sleep . When I take milk thistle, or liver support products that contain it, I typically only need 8 hours sleep and no nap or crash during the day . Anybody have ideas on mechanism other than increased detoxification? And what to do to pursue this further?

 

[Martial]

could be due to clearing out free radicals and toxins and helping to urinate out and de toxing these damaging free radicals.. I remember before you mentioning having lyme co infections.. Well with lyme you can accumulate toxic levels of ammonia internally and keeping good hydration and detox can clear all this out..

Excessive ammonia levels can have very adverse effects in the body, especially the brain.. Sleepiness, depression, personality changes, erratic behavior, psychosis, extreme fatigue, and all kinds of other symptoms can happen from excessive ammonia if not cleared out of the body, especially from the blood brain barrier.

 

[rwac]

Milk thistle increases the liver storage of glycogen. Other causes of low liver storage of glycogen would be inadequate carb consumption and hypothyroid.

 

[adreno]

Milk thistle also increases glutathione.

 

[dannybex]

Milk thistle increases the liver storage of glycogen. Other causes of low liver storage of glycogen would be inadequate carb consumption and hypothyroid.

I agree. Plus anything that helps improve liver function should probably help with both sleep issues and 'energy'.

Having said that, I'd love to be able to sleep 10 hours a night.

 

[Beyond]

Wow you found something that delivers more restful sleep!! That is an awesome thing.

I would look into more liver/detox tonics if I were you, it is a start bearing in mind that is the main effect of Sylimarin.

 

[maryb]

@dmholmes
glad to hear you feel better on milk thistle - the first time I got ill I took this religiously, since getting ill again I haven't been able to tolerate it, what strength and brand do you use? I think practically every nutritionist/herbalist you read about recommends this herb for the liver.

 

[WoolPippi]

I was just reading about thyroid and how the body converts T4 (storage hormone) into T3 (active hormone) all day long. When there's stress or illness the liver deactivates T3 into rT3 (reverse T3) and this is very taxing to the liver. Not to mention you lose a lot of active hormone.

Milk Thistle (and liver cleansing) has two workings: it supports the liver and it lowers the inactive rT3 in favour of the active T3. Tadaah, perhaps a partly explanation for your experience?

It also states that Milk Thistle will lower Ferritin and that iron-supplement is advised. And Selenium too. Also, Milk Thistle not made from the seeds may have estrogenic effect, it says.

you can read for yourself here: http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/reverse-t3/
look for word "milk" for the alinea I'm qouting.

 

[dmholmes]

could be due to clearing out free radicals and toxins and helping to urinate out and de toxing these damaging free radicals.. I remember before you mentioning having lyme co infections.. Well with lyme you can accumulate toxic levels of ammonia internally and keeping good hydration and detox can clear all this out..

Excessive ammonia levels can have very adverse effects in the body, especially the brain.. Sleepiness, depression, personality changes, erratic behavior, psychosis, extreme fatigue, and all kinds of other symptoms can happen from excessive ammonia if not cleared out of the body, especially from the blood brain barrier.

Thanks @Martial, certainly sounds possible. Looking into the ammonia connection...

 

[dmholmes]

Having said that, I'd love to be able to sleep 10 hours a night.

@dannybex, yeah I bet a lot of people would . Perhaps I should have said 10 hours of unrefreshing sleep versus 8 hours of refreshing sleep.

 

[dmholmes]

@dmholmes
glad to hear you feel better on milk thistle - the first time I got ill I took this religiously, since getting ill again I haven't been able to tolerate it, what strength and brand do you use? I think practically every nutritionist/herbalist you read about recommends this herb for the liver.

Thanks @maryb. When I first stumbled on to this last year I was taking Super Thisilyn 3x/day. I've been using Geneutics organic milk thistle this week 1x/day.

 

[dmholmes]

I was just reading about thyroid and how the body converts T4 (storage hormone) into T3 (active hormone) all day long. When there's stress or illness the liver deactivates T3 into rT3 (reverse T3) and this is very taxing to the liver. Not to mention you lose a lot of active hormone.

Milk Thistle (and liver cleansing) has two workings: it supports the liver and it lowers the inactive rT3 in favour of the active T3. Tadaah, perhaps a partly explanation for your experience?

Thanks for the info @WoolPippi. That's certainly another possible explanation. I've had elevated rT3 in the past. My TSH has been steadily rising also, 4.0 last check.

It also states that Milk Thistle will lower Ferritin and that iron-supplement is advised. And Selenium too. Also, Milk Thistle not made from the seeds may have estrogenic effect, it says.

My ferritin has been somewhat elevated for a while, around 260. But on last check it was 194. My iron has been okay, usually around 105. But my TIBC and UIBC have been below range for quite a while.

 

[peggy-sue]

Maybe off topic, but I was very interested a while back to read a paper on Medline that a study had been done using milk thistle extract on cancer patients undergoing chemo.
It positively protected their livers from chemo damage.

The only official study I know of, using MT. And it was positive!

 

[Hip]

Milk thistle also increases glutathione.

The increase in intracellular glutathione induced by milk thistle may well explain why, while taking this herb, you seem to need less sleep. See this:

Can Glutathione Improve My Sleep?

Answer: Yes. Here's why:

The relationship between Glutathione (GSH) and sleep is summed up by Dr. Jimmy Gutman in his latest bestseller "Glutathione - Your Key to Health" on page 181, here:

"Certain tissues are more susceptible to GSH depletion than others. Measuring glutathione levels in specific areas of the brain of sleep-deprived animals reveals that the thalamus and hypothalamus are particularly susceptible. The vulnerability of these tissues may contribute to some of the functional effects of sleep deprivation.

Oxidized glutathione (GSSG) is an active component of the neurochemical SPS (sleep promoting substance). Researchers at the Tokyo Medical University showed that high levels of oxidized glutathione promote sleep and affect other hypothalamic functions, such as temperature control. The same team also suggests that GSH detoxifies neuronal tissues more actively during certain periods of sleep. This may explain why those taking GSH-enhancing products like Immunocal often report less need for sleep yet feel more energetic."

Source: here.

Note that Immunocal is a brand of whey protein isolate.

If increased intracellular glutathione in indeed the explanation of why you need less sleep, then there are other supplements that also increase intracellular glutathione that you might try: undenatured whey protein isolate is effective for this, and N-acetyl-cysteine, SAMe, and alpha lipoic acid also raise intracellular glutathione. And there is a product called ASEA which increases intracellular glutathione by 500%. Ref: here.

Though if you look online, you see that whey protein isolate can cause insomnia.

 

[adreno]

..whey protein isolate is effective for this..

I thought only undenatured whey is effective?

 

[Hip]

I thought only undenatured whey is effective?

Yeah I think that's right. I will insert the word undenatured in my post above.

It says here that: "undenatured" whey products are processed at lower temperatures than typical powdered whey protein. This requires a meticulous filtering process to maintain purity. The lower temperature preserves the fragile, but powerful, biologically active proteins, lactoferrin, and immunoglobulins in whey."

 

[dmholmes]

The increase in intracellular glutathione induced by milk thistle may well explain why, while taking this herb, you seem to need less sleep. See this:

Thanks @Hip, very possible. My GSH has been below range, GSSH above range both times I've done a methylation pathways panel.

 

[dmholmes]

And to extrapolate, perhaps elevated GSSH causes my sudden exhaustion/crashes? Then when it is taken care of I recover?

 

[picante]

Milk Thistle (and liver cleansing) has two workings: it supports the liver and it lowers the inactive rT3 in favour of the active T3. Tadaah, perhaps a partly explanation for your experience?

http://metabolichealing.com/thyroid-solutions-glutathione-t4-t3-conversion/

One of the major factors influencing the T4 to T3 conversion has been shown to be the antioxidant Glutathione (1, 2).

This article is written at a fairly basic level, but it does give references. Since I've been on T3-only for years, the couple of paragraphs on the role of glutathione gave me a big clue about my T4-T3 conversion.

So I'm going to give milk thistle a try. I've been trying to increase glutathione with methylation supps (I'm still blocked by high ammonia/sulfite/glutamate), then with reduced L-glutathione cream (which eventually gave me glutamate toxicity).

It might actually work, if it's reducing the rate of glutathione oxidation, as it says here:

The active component of milk thistle called silymarin prevents lipid peroxidation of GSH and maintains its levels.

 

[Violeta]

http://metabolichealing.com/thyroid-solutions-glutathione-t4-t3-conversion/


This article is written at a fairly basic level, but it does give references. Since I've been on T3-only for years, the couple of paragraphs on the role of glutathione gave me a big clue about my T4-T3 conversion.

So I'm going to give milk thistle a try. I've been trying to increase glutathione with methylation supps (I'm still blocked by high ammonia/sulfite/glutamate), then with reduced L-glutathione cream (which eventually gave me glutamate toxicity).

It might actually work, if it's reducing the rate of glutathione oxidation, as it says here:

I think the reason goitrogens are said to affect thyroid activity is because they affect conversion of T4 to T3, not because they actually decrease T4 production. So would what you mentioned in your post have to do with the effects of goitrogens, sulforaphane? I don't know, and I can't figure it out, my brain is not working today because of having to work last night and then not being able to sleep.