Milk thistle's active compound silymarin works synergistically with radiation and chemotherapy, protecting cells and improving liver function during and after treatment. Though it has fewer studies than curcumin, silymarin has solid research backing its use in recovery and healing.
Milk thistle and silymarin are basically talking about the same thing. Silymarin has not nearly as many research papers as, say, curcumin does or mushrooms do, but it has quite a lot of science behind it. Silymarin is a little different than, say, curcumin or some of the more broad things where it's known in research to be helpful as a synergist with certain therapies, some radiation therapies, some chemotherapies, certainly helpful in recovery from those therapies, certainly helpful to protect your cells, helpful with improving liver function, especially in the therapeutic or the post-therapeutic healing stage, has really specific places to plug in that your integrative providers may use with you.
