What is optimal dosing for silymarin? I am currently taking 250x2mg (500mg) of thistle milk (80% silymarin) in the morning. It appears that Silymarin has poor bioavailability and is almost impossible to OD on orally:
Something else which some of you might find interesting:
I don't know how one would go about including the β-cyclodextrin (a starch) with silymaring, but maybe someone does.
No 0ne knows the optimum dose; from the structural similarity of silybin, the most active component, to butein, a known SIRT1 activator that is half as potent by weight as resveratrol, one might make a stab at a first approximation that silybin is similarly active. I did the math near the beginning of this thread, and concluded that a capsule containing 170 mg of Silymarin is roughly equivalent to 50 mg of resveratrol. Based on self-administration of this compound and of synthetic and 98% resveratrol extracts, I believe this equivalence is reasonably accurate.
The inclusion of cyclodextrin and silymarin would be similar to the method Proteomist and I have described in another thread on resveratrol bioavailability, and in the 500 mg Resveratrol users thread (the thread that never ends.) The difference is the method calls for PEG 3350, which is readily available in any drug store, but this method should work for Cyclodextrine and Silymarin as well.
Let us say one desires to make a 500 mg dose of resveratrol (or silymarin, in this case.) One needs a good grade of extract with very small particl size, almost dusty. Mirronized would be best.
Weigh 600 mg of Miralax, and stir into 1/4 cup (4 oz, or about 120 milliliters) of water.
Stir until thoroughly dissolved.
Add 500 mg of resveratrol (or silymarin)
Stir thoroughly, until the resveratrol is suspended in the water, resulting in a milky-white lliquid.
The mixture will not settle, but remain in suspension indefinitely, except for any larger resveratrol particles that clump together without being bound by the Miralax. One may drink the liquid.
To make a PEG 3350 "inclusion", one would evaporate the liquid; the resulting powder will be a water soluble form of resveratrol.
This method should work with cyclodextrin as well as PGE3350, and with Silymarin in place of resveratrol. However, I've not actually tried it, and there may be some caveats. Silymarin is usually sold as an 80% extract. The other plant substances present may affect the process in some unpredictable way. I've not used cyclodextrin myself, though the description from those who have indicate the method should wrk, if the mixture is stirred vigorously. Cyclodextrin does not work as a detergent (one end charged,, one end neutral, so it can bond to both insoluble substances and to water.) Cyclodextrin molecules form a ring which traps other molecules, and acts as a carrier: it is water soluble, and so carries insoluble molecules along for the ride, so to speak.
I intend to try Miralax and silymarin within the next few days. I'll report back, if someone (Bixbyte? Lucid?) doesn't beat me to it.
