ArticleScientific reports2019
Poor chemical and microbiological quality of the commercial milk thistle-based dietary supplements may account for their reported unsatisfactory and non-reproducible clinical outcomes.
Article in Scientific reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers.
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Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 62 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Isosilybin B: a potential novel therapeutic agent with hepatoprotective, anticancer and antifibrotic properties.Discover oncology · 2025Article
- Milk Thistle (Current medicinal chemistry · 2025Review
- Nanoparticle-boosted silymarin: Are we overlooking taxifolin and other key components?Frontiers in plant science · 2025Article
- Looking beyond silybin: the importance of other silymarin flavonolignans.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
- Chemical Standardization of Milk Thistle (Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry · 2024Article
- Rifampin- and Silymarin-Mediated Pharmacokinetic Interactions of Exogenous and Endogenous Substrates in a Transgenic OATP1B Mouse Model.Molecular pharmaceutics · 2024Article
- Complementary and alternative medicines and liver disease.Hepatology communications · 2024Review
- Mitigation of intrahepatic cholestasis induced by 17α-ethinylestradiol via nanoformulation of Silybum marianum L.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2024Article
- Novel Strategies Enhancing Bioavailability and Therapeutical Potential of Silibinin for Treatment of Liver Disorders.Drug design, development and therapy · 2024Review
- Authentication of milk thistle commercial products using UHPLC-QTOF-ESI + MS metabolomics and DNA metabarcoding.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2023Article
- Detecting and Profiling of Milk Thistle Metabolites in Food Supplements: A Safety-Oriented Approach by Advanced Analytics.Metabolites · 2023Review
- The Presence of Molds and Their Secondary Metabolites in Purple Coneflower-Based Dietary Supplements (Toxins · 2022Article
- Interactions between Medical Plant-Derived Bioactive Compounds: Focus on Antimicrobial Combination Effects.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Mycotoxins occurrence in medicinal herbs dietary supplements and exposure assessment.Journal of food science and technology · 2022Article
- Targeting Breast Cancer-Derived Stem Cells by Dietary Phytochemicals: A Strategy for Cancer Prevention and Treatment.Cancers · 2022Review
- Sulfated Phenolic Substances: Preparation and Optimized HPLC Analysis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Article
- Investigation of market herbal products regulated under different categories: How can HPTLC help to detect quality problems?Frontiers in pharmacology · 2022Article
- The Effect of Mycotoxins and Silymarin on Liver Lipidome of Mice with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.Biomolecules · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Herbal-based dietary supplements have become increasingly popular. The extract from milk thistle (Silybum marianum), is often used for the treatment of liver diseases. However, serious concerns exist regarding the efficacy, composition, as well as the safety of these over-the-counter preparations. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the composition as well as chemical and biological safety of 26 milk thistle-based dietary supplements purchased from both the U.S. and Czech markets between 2016 and 2017. The study was focused on a determination of the composition of active ingredients, as well as analyses of possible contaminants including: mycotoxins, plant alkaloids, and pesticide residues, as well as the microbial purity. High-throughput analyses were performed using advanced U-HPLC-HRMS techniques. Large differences in the silymarin content were observed among individual milk thistle preparations, often in contrast with the information provided by the manufacturers. In addition, substantial inter-batch differences in silymarin content were also demonstrated. In all milk thistle preparations tested, large numbers and high concentrations of mycotoxins and several pesticides, as well as the substantial presence of microbiological contamination were detected, pointing to serious safety issues. In conclusion, our results strongly indicate the need for strict controls of the composition, chemical contaminants, as well as the microbiological purity of commercial milk thistle extracts used for the treatment of liver diseases. Poor definition of these preparations together with contamination by biologically active substances may not only account for the inconsistency of clinical observations, but also be responsible for possible herbal-based dietary supplements-induced liver injury.
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