Herbal Extract and Vitamin E Aid Patients with Liver Diseases

A combination of silybin, an extract of the herb milk thistle, and vitamin E improved liver function in people with either chronic hepatitis C infection or fatty liver.

Jacopo Vecchiet, MD, of the Gabriele d’Annunzio University, Italy, and his colleagues used silybin and vitamin E to treat 30 men and women with hepatitis C infection, and then compared their responses to 10 patients who did not receive the supplements.

The supplements provided 188 mg of silybin and 60 IU of vitamin E daily for three months.

After three months, people receiving the supplements benefited from a significant decrease in their liver enzymes, a sign of improved liver function. The two enzymes, ALT and AST, declined from an average of 63 to 52 and from 49 to 40, respectively. In addition, they benefited from about a 22 percent decrease in C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation.

Ten other patients with fatty liver, known medically as steatosis, also benefited from the supplements. They also had significant decreases in ALT and AST, along with reductions in total cholesterol, fasting glucose, fasting insulin, and C-reactive protein.

Reference: Falasca K, Ucciferri C, Mancino P, et al. "Treatment with silybin-vitamin E-phospholipid complex in patients with hepatitis C infection." Journal of Medical Virology, 2008; 80:1900-1906.