I live in an area with very high environmental levels of formadehyde, in addition to regular exposure to two-stroke engine exhaust. I take Silymarin as per the higher end of my bottle's recommendations, and NAC-N Acetyl Cysteine--as well. NAC is a source for glutathione, and glutathione is one of the rate-limiting proteins in the clearance process for toxic substances in the liver.

Silymarin makes liver cells more resistant to absorbing toxins, and I think it does something about how efficiently they use glutathione??, but it doesn't actually make more glutathione.

It's funny--my anatomy book has a whole chapter on kidney function, and only three paragraphs on liver function. You can live a long time on no kidneys (assuming dialysis), but you won't get to the end of three days on no liver.

I've been taking milk thistle for many years, maybe 20 years ago was the first time. About once a year, I get a bottle and take it according to the directions until it's gone. And, believe it or not, I notice a change in my eye color when I've taken it for awhile. My eyes are usually a murky green/blue, but when I'm on milk thistle they get more clear and are more blue. That's the only "side effect" I've ever noticed. I figure something good must be happening, and it shows up in my eyes, so I keep taking it.

A low-carb diet means higher protein and fats. This increase in percentage requires more bile be produced by the liver and stored in the gallbladder to properly digest. So yes there is a miniscule increase in stress on th liver, but of course nothing to worry about. Now some people will react to a low carb, higher protein/fat diet because they went into it with liver/gallbladder issues and the minor increase in workload brought out the symptoms of the problem.

So low carb may cause you to become aware of a liver problem earlier but high lean protein, moderate good fats, and healthy low complex carb diets is how we evolved through time. It is the food we had to eat. It just doesn't make sense that this lifestyle could be detrimental.

Two anecdotes that may interest some of you.

My late wife passed away 7 years ago from BC. She ate what was then regarded as a healthy diet; lots of unsaturated oils, veg, and flour products. When her BC was first detected he liver was found to be fatty and the physicians thought she was a closeted alcoholic but she wasn't. She did however have a penchant for soft drinks. You'll need to draw your own conclusions.

About 5 weeks ago I read on one of the postings of someone who had a glycometer to read their blood-sugar levels. Consequently I purchased one to discover that my fasting BS readings were in the high prediabetic range and overlapped into the diabetic. Knowing of the benefits of milk thistle I took some and within 3 days my fasting BS dropped to within the normal range and has remained there.