Reposting on Milk thistle for liver protection

Reposting a discussion from Cancercompass (July 10, 2015, page 213) on milk thistle for liver issues.

• A: Has anyone had problems with liver while on the cocktail? My blood tests have just come back, Alt Sgpt jumped from 7 to 48 in just 10 days (with reference range 0-32). I googled and it says it shows liver damage. I was on chemo 6/29-7/5 and also started some cocktail meds on the 7/2.
• M: We have not experienced  elevation in liver enzymes.  If you are not taking a good quality Milk thistle product you might want to consider it.  Milk thistle, in particular the silymarin, is a potent hepatoprotective herb.  Typical dose is 300 mg tid with a product standardized to 80 percent silymarin.  You might want to consider a higer dose initially given your liver enzymes are elevated
• A: Thank you. I do take milk thistle, 500 mg/day
• M: I would bump it up to at least the total daily dose of 900 mg (300 mg tid) since that is considered a standard therapeutic dose for liver issues. 
• AB: Yup we have experienced elevated liver enzymes twice. Once when just on radiation and taking boswellia, curcumin, omeprazole.. then, the kidney and liver both were very high above normal. They said it was acute dehydration.. brought on by a rare reaction to the omeprazole. The liver totally recovered, the kidneys came back to normal, but just barely.
  Yesterday we got our latest blood labs. In just six days, the liver AST and ALT readings went from very goodl to the very top of the normal range. We all need to be aware that these changes can happen very, very quickly..
• M: ...Anyway, regardless of what the bottle says, take milk thistle three times per day.  That is the standard practice for dosing milk thistle for liver related issues. Of course higher doses once there has been an acute elevation of liver enzymes might prove beneficial.
• S: Berberine also protects the liver from toxic stress, at least in mice.
  http://astrocytomaoptions.com/supplements/
• MA: I´m taking A LOT of things, and my liver has been holding it very well.  I use 500mg berberine bid and 300mg silymarin also bid. Maybe you could bump up the doses a little bit to get in track!