Daily Dosage: Liver transplants gone holistic
A new liver - but did he try milk thistle?
Last week, it was announced that Steve Jobs, my favorite Chief Executive Officer, had undergone a liver transplant, most likely because of metastasized cancer. The surgery raised a few eyebrows – among stock-holders, but also among those in the medical community. Spare livers are scarce, and transplants haven’t been proven efficacious for conditions like Jobs’.
Jobs probably skipped a few lines to score his new liver, but what’s a wannabe transplantee to do if their doc won’t recommend an organ swap or the list is too lengthy? Well, they could go the homeopathic route instead:
…By popping some milk thistle. Last year, researchers at the Integrative Center of New Mexico reported successfully treating three liver transplant candidates (suffering from Hepatitis C) with a regimen of natural supplements: alpha-lipoic acid, selenium and milk thistle. The treatment cost around $2,000, and all three improved enough to skip surgery – which runs around $300,000.
If you don’t buy into a study that only had three participants, then go ahead and get your new liver. But perhaps consider homeopathy during recovery: a 2006 review of several hundred liver transplantees found that those who used alternative therapies (including natural supplements, meditation and self-help groups) had better coping skills following their surgery.
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I certainly hope Steve Jobs takes your recovery advice! When I heard about his liver transplant, my knee-jerk reaction was, given the scarcity of donated livers, that his fame and money cut him in front of the line. It came as a shock to me that his health was really bad when Methodist University Hospital, the facility that treated Jobs, said that he was “the sickest patient on the waiting list at the time a donor organ became available.”