Milk Thistle - Mini Episode

Hi, this is Rita Hogan, and welcome to the Dogs Are Individuals podcast. I'm a clinical canine herbalist, and I've been practicing for over 20 years. This podcast is all about your dog through an herbal lens. So let's get to it and dive right in. Hello, everyone, this is Rita Hogan with the Dogs Are Individuals podcast. This is one of my mini episodes for you guys on the go. You can share it with friends and family who love dogs or whom maybe they love herbs. I am going to talk about milk thistle in this mini podcast. And milk thistle is pretty popular. I think it's a little misunderstood. I know that I've learned a lot about milk thistle in the last, like, six to seven years, and I'm always learning. I think everyone should try to be open to new perspectives, new research, new understanding of these plants that we use a lot of. And milk thistle is one of the most highly used plants, it seems like, pretty much on the planet. So milk thistle's Latin name is Silybum marinam. That's my pronunciation. And you can pronounce it any way you like, really. It's sweet, and it really does make a nutritive tonic. And a tonic is something that slowly improves function throughout the body. And nutritives nourish your dog's entire body. And the taste of sweet in the body is really associated with nutritives and anything that's that provides nutrition for the body. And a lot of times milk thistle isn't looked in kind of at well within the lens of nutrition it's always talked about as far as its affiliation with the liver. But providing nutrients and opening the body up for nutrition with that sweet undertone of flavor really does help you understand this plant better. Another thing about milk thistle is it's moistening and it's soothing and it has, like, an oily nature to it. The seed does, and I'm talking about the seed today, by the way. And the seed is bitter. And as a bitter, it really works on digestion. And milk thistle works indirectly, I would say, on digestion through the liver and the gallbladder. And it does have some affinity towards the kidney, which also people don't really talk about all that much in kind of lay communities where, you know, we're just talking about what milk thistle can do for us. And definitely it has some affinity towards the kidney. It can help support the kidney, and I find that that's important because kidney function is often overlooked in the big picture of liver health. One of the things I have noticed with milk thistle is that if the liver and the kidney are quite weak, sometimes you can get some incontinence with using milk thistle. And if that's the case you want to, I would use a simple and a simple is one single herb that you're going to use and use that only to try to improve function. And I would use some simple for the kidneys and work with someone to help improve kidney function. And then you can try using milk thistle again. If you're using a tincture of milk thistle and you get incontinence, then I would switch to a powder and use a lot less of it. A lot of times, dosage can be the deciding mark in herbs having side effects. And yes, herbs can have side effects, especially when they're not used properly or the herb isn't well indicated for your dog. So milk thistle helps cleanse the blood and it brings down your dog's toxic load. And this increases circulation and helps push through stagnancy in the body. And when you push through stagnancy, that means that things are getting stuck, energy is getting stuck, you can decrease inflammation. And that's what you know, that's what it's all about, decreasing inflammation in the body. A lot of milk thistle that's used is what would be called standardized milk thistle, and that is a standardized level of the active ingredient called silymarin or silabin and silyben. Those are your two active ingredients that have been discussed via clinical studies and science. But milk thistle has hundreds upon hundreds of constituents and I feel they are all needed. So if you're going to use milk thistle long term, I would use just the seed in tincture or powdered form. And if you're going to use it for like, high liver enzymes, I would use a blend of standardized milk thistle and regular milk thistle seed. And there's a company called Oregon's Wild Harvest. They have a website, it's oregonswildharvest.com and they make a really good blend of milk thistle seed and standardized extract. I use that brand a lot. And then there is herbalist and alchemist. They have a good milk thistle. And for tincture, animal essentials and herb farm, I carry those in my store. I also make make milk thistle tincture, so there are some choices there. One of the things that milk thistle does to increase proper detoxification in the liver is it increases glucothione, which supports cellular regeneration of liver tissue. Milk thistle is definitely known as a liver function restorer and it helps protect the liver from being damaged in Both, I would say, acute and chronic situations. And it really helps utilize antioxidants in the body to help bring down free radicals and oxidation. So you don't want a lot of free radicals hanging out in the body. You want to provide a lot of antioxidants in the diet through foods and nutrition and herbs along with milk thistle when you use it. So, for instance, you could use chaga mushroom if it's well indicated, or you could use maritime pine bark if it's well indicated. You could use things like phytoplankton if it's well indicated, to help provide extra antioxidants. I'll do a little short on antioxidants and go through a whole bunch of them with you next time so that you can have a good list of antioxidants to choose from. Milk thistle is also called Holy Thistle or St. Mary's Thistle or Lady's thistle. Those are common names for milk thistle most of the time. Here in the United States, you're going to hear the word milk thistle as its common name, and then the Latin name, which is silly bum marananum, or it can be Cardus marianus, depending on who you're talking to. Cardus marianus is an older Latin name for milk thistle. Milk thistle is very sustainably grown and its toxicity is very, very low. And toxicity doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to cause death. It means that there are side effects happening and it's given in too large of a dose. So toxicity doesn't always mean, you know, lethal. Just a reminder on that one. Most milk thistle is picked between July and September, but you can usually find extracts all year round. Again, we use the seeds a lot in herbalism, but you can also use the flowers. I like milk thistle flower essence, and you can use the leaves, too. But mainly the seeds are used for canine herbalism. So one thing to note is milk thistle is high in lignans, and lignans repair liver cells, and they help prevent oxidation and they protect your dog from toxins. So milk thistle supports both phase one and phase two liver detoxification, which is super important. And it has an affinity towards the liver, the lung, the spleen, the heart and the kidneys. So it's very well rounded, it's oily again, it's sweet. As far as energetics, I would say it's neutral, pretty neutral. Most dogs can handle it. If you don't know what I'm talking about as far as energetics, check out my energetics course on k nineherbalism.com so milk thistle really does excel for dry conditions and it can also be used for heat. It's very balancing. Some of the things that milk thistle is good for is one high liver enzymes, definitely dryness. It can also be used for dampness. Again, it's balancing. Using pharmaceuticals. I find it good for those dogs that kind of have pushy in your face behavior. Definitely use it. If you're going to use pharmaceutical flea and tick prevention, you should keep your dog on milk thistle the entire time you have your dog on something like that. It's good for chronic diarrhea. It's good for dogs with anal gland issues. It's wonderful for dogs that are easily agitated or have high anxiety. It's an anti inflammatory and it's an antihistamine so it helps dogs with sensitivities or also people call those allergies. I have a lot to say about milk thistle, so I'm not sure if it's the best thing for a short but if you enjoy this type of information, you can check out my monthly monographs on k9herbalism.com and I have a really great, very lengthy monograph of milk thistle on there and you'll be hearing more about milk thistle as we progress through a lot of these podcasts. The suggested dose for a liquid milk thistle is 2 drops for extra small dogs, 4 drops for medium dogs, 6 drops for large dogs, 8 drops for giant dogs. Given twice a day. I usually will drip that on a treat because it's very bitter or add water for taste. Well, that pretty much rounds it up for milk thistle. My podcast is sponsored by two great companies, one Adored Beast Apothecary, and the other realmushrooms.com so please visit their websites and check out what they have to offer or you can find their products on my website, canineherbalist.com we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to this episode of Dogs are Individuals. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app. And don't forget, sharing is caring. So if you love Dogs Are Individuals podcast, share it with your friends and family who love dogs. This will help me so much. And remember, as a listener, I appreciate you much. Thanks to Resonant Media, my podcast production team. This podcast is produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry. Any questions, email the show, go to k9herbalist.com Click podcast contact in the menu and then fill out that form and I'll answer any questions here online. Okay, so thank you so much for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals podcast, and I'm going to talk to you in our next episode.