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When you try to find the right supplements to treat a health condition, it can feel like a shot in the dark. You often have to count on word of mouth. But some men with BPH have found success with supplements. And there’s at least some scientific research to back them up. When you have BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia), your prostate is larger than normal. It can cause problems such as a weak urine stream or a need to pee a lot throughout the day. Your doctor might suggest a prescription drug to treat your symptoms, but you might find...

There’s no denying that the internet loves a good hack — especially if it’s one that will help prevent the crapulence feeling that comes on the morning after consuming one too many espresso martinis. The latest quirky health hack is milk thistle supplements being used to prevent nasty hangovers. In a video of a TikTok user raving about the herbal remedy, she told her viewers: “Last week I went out and took two of these before a night of drinking and I woke up and ran a 5k the next day.” But before you jump on the milk thistle bandwagon,...

Researchers begin noting that the efficacy of coadjuvant molecules, in the landscape of cancer treatments, remains a focus of attention for clinical research with the aim of reducing toxicity and achieving better outcomes. The researchers state, "Most of the pathogenetic processes causing tumor development, neoplastic progression, aging, and increased toxicity involve inflammation." Inflammatory mechanisms can progress through a variety of molecular patterns. As is well known, the aging process is determined by pathological pathways very similar and often parallel to those that cause cancer development. Among these complex mechanisms, inflammation is currently much studied and is often referred to in...

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...