Faster Repair of Broken Bones

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OLYMPIC swimmer Kenrick Monk, who won a gold medal with the 4x200-metre relay team at the Commonwealth Games, broke his arm after falling off a skateboard. As coaches we all hate the situation when our swimmers get injured, especially borken bones when preparing for the olympics or major chamionships. 

Working closely with Sports Medicine Doctor the swimmer may be able to some form of training. But can the swimmer take anything to speed up the healing of the broken bones? Maybe! Recent research suggests that broken bones may heal faster with thistle supplementation.

You might know the extract of milk thistle - scientific name: Silybum marianum - as a supplement that protects your liver. But according to recent studies, milk thistle can do more. In animal studies Silybum marianum protects against Alzheimer's, and Korean researchers in a study recently published in Experimental Biology and Medicine, have shown that thistle leaves helps broken bones heal faster.

The active substances in milk thistle supplements are flavonolignanen as silychristin, isosilychristin, silydianin, silibinin and isosilibin. They all seem very similar. All these compounds together are called silymarin. In citrus there is a compound known as hesperidin which is somewhat similar to silymarin. .Hesperidin may regulate osteoblast differentiation and influence the mineralization process by modulating osteopontin expression [J Appl Physiol. 2008 Mar and 104 (3) :648-54.]

Scientists at Hallym University in South Korea suspected that a botopbouwend silymarin could be efffective. In a study, which was funded by an incentive fund of the Ministry of Economic Korea, Koreans tested the hypothesis in cell and animal studies. The researchers broke the tibia of mice [Fractured], and studied the recovery to 3 weeks after the fracture. Some of these mice were taking a daily oral dose of 10 mg per kg body weight [Silymarin Treated].

If you compare that dose values to a human dose , you arrive at 0.8 mg silymarin per kg / day. If you weigh eighty kilos, you would need 65 mg of active ingredient per day need. That's fine. If you used a concentrated supplement, you have to 1 capsule per day is enough.

The figures below show that the relevant doses led to an accelerated recovery. The supplement also increased the bone mineral density [BMD] and the mineral density [BMC] in the broken bone.

Silymarin increased the concentration of osteocalcin and alkaline phosphatase in the blood of the mice, and the production of bone morphogenetic protein-2 and collagen-I in bone cells. 

Source: Exp Biol Med (Maywood). 2012 Apr 1; 237 (4) :417-28.