Milk thistle & HIV

Executive Summary

"Milk thistle in commonly administered dosages should not interfere with indinavir therapy in patients infected with" HIV, researchers report in May Pharmacotherapy. Stephen Piscitelli, et al., National Institutes of Health, conducted prospective open-label study of 10 healthy volunteers and found an insignificant 9% reduction in presence of HIV drug indinavir after three weeks of dosing with milk thistle. Participants received four doses of indinavir 800 mg at baseline, then took 175 mg milk thistle (containing 153 mg silymarin) three times/day for three weeks. In similar research, Piscitelli et al. had shown HIV drug interactions with garlic, St. John's wort (1"The Tan Sheet" Dec. 10, 2001, p. 11)...