Subject: Hepatitis C and use of Milk Thistle
From: Patrick Martin
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2006 09:32:30 -0800
To: Housecall@foxnews.com

Dear Dr. Rosenfeld;

As one with hepatitis C (genotype 1 - predominant in USA) I have failed normal pharmaceutical medications (peginterferon/ribavirin) not once, but twice, the second time requiring me to be hospitalized for two weeks to recover from a variety of blood levels all out of shape.

I have since completely removed myself from any pharmaceutical medications for my disease.  And with much research, placed myself on a herbal/natural program of my own design, with some helpful recommendations from some others as well.

For a long time Milk Thistle has been a recommended product for this sort of liver disease.  There is much study related information supporting this as well - see:   http://www.ultrathistle.com/

All recent studies claiming milk thistle does nothing for liver health focuses on lose dose milk thistle, normally around 100-150mg 3x/daily.  However, real study base dosage recommendations run at 360mg or more 3x/daily.

And none of the pharmaceutical studies used SILIPHOS® in their studies, but a less effective milk thistle extract.

I'm actually looking at moving over to a higher dosage Milk Thistle product:   http://www.liverfriend.com/product_info.php?products_id=495

But I've been rather amazed to see milk thistle come under fire from our pharmaceutical community as much as it has for the past year.  Here is a link to one of the many attacks I've seen directed at milk thistle over this past year:
http://hepatitis-central.com/mt/archives/2006/01/conclusions_abo.html
It is obvious we need study results with higher dosage and using Silybin Phytosome or  SILIPHOS®, as opposed to the milk thistle extract at low dosage these studies have focused on - but why go public with marginal of faulty research in the first place is MY question?

This rather tells me our pharmaceutical community fears the healing properties of MilkThistle and is trying to steer the diseased away from it for strictly financial reasons!

Here's a last link to Dr. Murry's milk thistle commentary:  
SILIPHOST: Nature's Potent Liver Remedy

My sincere apologies for the length of this email, as I knew the need to keep this minimal in size, but to spot on necessary and informative aspects of this issue is actually what dictated size here.

Hopefully some day we'll arrive with some other pharmaceutical medication with a far greater success rate and a far less side effects than the current two types of
peginterferon/ribavirin (which really has a success rate running in the 30-40 percent range {my gastroenterologist at Kaiser Permanente states a claim of 40-45 percent success rate last time I inquired for 'gut feel' on success rate of these medications} - that's labrat turf for the patients!).

Lastly, here's my comments of the medication trial monitored thru USC Medical Center that I went thru: http://borderline.gotdns.org/REPEATtrial.html.  Of related importance perhaps would be my weblog of reactions to this medication routine: http://borderline.gotdns.org/trialdiary.html...

As you may well know, the patient with hepatitis C is currently caught between the proverbial 'rock-n-hard place'...  Making the herbal/natural approach a far safer path for one to take...  And we have as well the ill effect of medical professionals with wide publication incorrectly using the very CURE word - see HEPATITIS DOCTOR HOME...  When there is good indication regardless of a successful medication routine, where SVR is claimed/announced (Sustained Virological Response), there is NO such thing as a CURE for hepatitis C - see: Post successful medication routine & SVR Is The Virus Gone?-(Sept 2004 hepc.bull)



Thanks for being there on FoxNews!

Thank You,

-Patrick Martin
xxxxx Brooke Ave.
Chatsworth, CA 91311
home: 818 xxx-xxxx

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