Talk:Silybum

"For many centuries..."
I often see this phrase being used by advocates of alternative medicine as a way of bolstering their claims (see "health effects" in this article). For many centuries schizophrenia was thought to be a result of demon possession. For many centuries an excessive of blood was thought to cause a myriad of diseases (see "bloodletting"). Unless there is empirical evidence verifying the efficacy of an herb, these comments should be placed in a "mythology" section. 69.41.137.88 (talk) 17:53, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I have heard that this is a favourite food of donkeys - could anyone research this and add to the article? Donkeys eating it surely adds to its credibility as a superfood. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.93.143.57 (talk) 09:10, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Hey, Iorsh, where did you get the claim that there are 11 spp in this genus? I can only trace two, and several authoritative sources say that's all there are. The IPNI search you reference lists a whole lot of others, but if open them up, you find they are tagged as synonyms of other species, or have been moved to other genera. So I've changed it, but by all means put it back if you have a good source for a longer list. seglea 02:20, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Oops, I didn't care to see what's inside the list. There is only one species in Israel. By the way, I'm not really familiar with IPNI - can't it be that two species each reference another one as synonim, and thus one can miss by ruling out both? --Iorsh 11:49, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think that can happen. When I realised that you had probably got your 11 from IPNI, I did a bit of digging around it - I'm not familiar with it either.  I found that its FAQs explicitly say that it's not a good database for determining how many species there are in a taxon - it's fundamentally a list of names not of species.  So I reckon that it is probably best used for finding possible species which one might have missed, but they then need checking elsewhere.  ITIS is much better at listing whether names are currently valid or not, but unfortunately it often lists mainly the North American species - plus a lot of its taxonomic judgements seem to be old-fashioned or just plain odd.


 * BTW, I liked the list of Israeli wild flowers on your user page - might it be worth making that an article in itself? It inspired me to start a List of San Francisco Bay Area wildflowers - the Bay Area being my temporary home, I have been doing articles on flowers whenever I manage to ID one and get a decent picture.  seglea 17:52, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

We probably need to create a page on the Blessed Milk Thistle to take the species-specific information about that one - most information out there on the net about milk thistles turns out to be abou S. marianum rather than the genus as a whole. I'll do it eventually if no-one does it first. seglea 18:30, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

culinary
I added a line about the extract being used in Rockstar, because there was no mention of the plant's culinary uses. I was not sure if there were any other products that used the ingredient or if it was the only one.SargeAbernathy 07:08, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I guess someone removed your Rockstar reference? I think that was a great idea, as I came here from a link in the Rockstar article.  Also some mention that milk thistle is reported to help cure hangovers may be appropriate, though I'm not sure if there is any scientific proof to back that up.  MetaChimp 00:54, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Parts of the plant
This article makes no mention of which parts of the plant are used for medicinal purposes. If all parts are used, it should state that and also which parts are most active (or contain the highest amounts of silymarin).

--24.165.10.183 (talk) 20:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

You use only root for medicinal purposes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.163.225.187 (talk) 19:36, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe that the previous comment is incorrect. The traditional milk thistle extract (containing 65-80% silymarin) is made from the seeds. --Little Flower Eagle (talk) 20:19, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

== Removed advertising link ++

a link listed as summary report was to a site to buy products with unverified information and opinions. It also was narrow in scope applying to their product. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.104.232.181 (talk) 21:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

In veterinary medicine soft milk thistle leaves are used as a tonic for birds such as budgies, cockateils etc and I myself eat the leaves and flowers regularly and find that if I eat a hand full before a few alcoholic drinks I have a significantly clear hangover free head next morning. The plant grows as a common weed here in North Queensland and I have been using it for decades for my avian patients and myself.Duggie1230 (talk) 06:28, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

More Info Please!
I would like to know where this plant can now be found world wide. The article mentions where Milk Thistle is originally native but not where it has since migrated/been transported.

Many thanks

Outofthewoods (talk) 20:41, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Effect on semen volume
This article should address the common belief that milk thistle can increase seminal (ejaculate) volume. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.76.254.102 (talk) 01:57, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Supplement Quality and Concerns section
From the edit history of particular contributor who has been adding things to add reference to consumerlabs.com, the purpose is rather clear to improve exposure for the company rather than encyclopedic. The topic of this article is milk thistle but the section goes into excess details about quality, testing and excess details into test results etc of manufactured products rather than milk thistle itself. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 21:31, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Which editor were you referring to? I don't see a clear problem with WP:UNDUE. I also don't see a problem with Consumerlab as a source. I think the deletion was well intended but perhaps a bit too extreme, as there seemed to be quite a bit of relevant information contained therein. Perhaps we can work out a proposal to streamline the section a bit to resolve any weighting concerns. Rhode Island Red (talk) 16:11, 9 December 2012 (UTC)


 * this one Note how the editor has been inserting very similar things into many articles and this editor has never done anything on Wikipedia but ConsumerLab.com relevant stuff. It was deleted, because the pattern shows clear intent of WP:PROMO rather than to improve the article. The entire section focus excessively on politics surrounding manufactured products of milk thistle. It is US-centric and ConsumerLab is based on its own proprietary arbitrary standards. Since puffery/advertisement contents are prohibited per WP:NOPAY and there seems to be clear and convincing evidence that there's clear WP:COI I think removal of this section was just. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 21:04, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with the removal, and I think you have explained it very well. Joefromrandb (talk) 06:52, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't see "clear intent of WP:PROMO rather than to improve the article", but maybe I missed something. Consumer Lab meets the requirements for WP:RS so the source itself does not qualify as puffery/advertisement. Is there evidence of a violation of WP:NOPAY or WP:COI? If there is, the appropriate remedy would be to bring it the attention of the COI noticeboard for further action. Rhode Island Red (talk) 16:19, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * While it appears to me that Absander is here for the purpose of promoting the visibility of Consumerlab, I think there is a place for some of this content. It is relevant and useful information, and I support the inclusion of some of this content, but probably much of the detail needs to be trimmed (per WP:UNDUE) if it is going to be re-added to the article.  Deli nk (talk) 16:42, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Misleading source about history
History - Tamayo & Diamond (2007) (currently ref 13) state in their abstract that "Milk thistle extracts have been used as traditional herbal remedies for almost 2000 years" but give no justification at all in the content of their article (non-paywall). So that's not a source for the claim that silybum has been used since "ancient times" (where? when? Roman Empire? Han dynasty? Satavahana dynasty?) Boud (talk) 11:38, 23 April 2018 (UTC)