Liver Support
Best-in-class: Liver Cleanse
Thorne Liver Cleanse. The filed label declares four actives per capsule: berberine HCl 125 mg from Berberis aristata root, milk thistle extract 125 mg, burdock extract 100 mg and chicory extract 100 mg, taken one to three times daily. There is no artichoke and no dandelion in it. The drug-interaction risk in this bottle belongs to the berberine, not to the milk thistle.
Liver Support quick facts
| Suggested dose | As directed, often as a periodic supportive course. |
| How often | A periodic supportive course rather than continuous |
| Who it's for | Liver/detox support, especially with higher metabolic or lifestyle load. |
The sequencing logic matters more than any single ingredient: upregulating phase-I without phase-II capacity produces more reactive intermediates than you started with, so a blend that covers conjugation and elimination is better designed than one that just adds antioxidants. Judge it on components. Nothing here substitutes for reducing alcohol and visceral fat, which are the two largest liver levers.
How Liver Support actually works
Four actives across protection and elimination: berberine at 125 mg, milk thistle extract at 125 mg, and burdock and chicory at 100 mg each. The milk thistle is the hepatoprotective argument, silymarin stabilizing the hepatocyte membrane; the berberine is the metabolic one, acting on AMPK and on bile acid handling. Burdock and chicory are inulin, and 100 mg is not a fiber dose — they are carrier weight.
Where to get Liver Support
Buy Liver Cleanse at Thorne →The evidence for Liver Support
Graded by what exists behind each claim.
✅ Clinically validated
- Milk thistle (silymarin) has RCT support for liver-enzyme improvement in some liver conditions.
- Bitter botanicals support bile flow and digestion.
📊 Correlative data
- Liver stress markers track with metabolic load, alcohol and medication use.
🧪 Theoretical / extrapolated benefits
- General 'detox/cleanse' framing is popular but the body detoxifies continuously — think support, not a reset.
How to read these tiers: they say how much human evidence exists, not how well something works — and ✗ flags harm, never a disappointing trial. How the evidence tiers work →
What Liver Support actually does
Start with what is in the bottle, because it is not what this site's own card says. The label on file with the NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database for Thorne Liver Cleanse lists four actives per capsule: berberine HCl 125 mg from Indian barberry root (Berberis aristata), milk thistle extract 125 mg, burdock extract 100 mg and chicory extract 100 mg, taken one to three times daily NIH Office of Dietary Supplements 2026. Artichoke is not in it. NAC is not in it. TUDCA is not in it. Dandelion is not in the current formulation — it was in an earlier one, alongside stinging nettle and uva-ursi NIH Office of Dietary Supplements 2026.
So the mechanism section has to be about berberine, and nobody writes it that way. Berberine is an isoquinoline alkaloid, and it is by a distance the most pharmacologically active molecule in this capsule. Its human pharmacokinetics are dependent on CYP2D6 and differ by sex Blocher 2024. CYP2D6 is the enzyme that clears a long list of prescription drugs. A product sold on the idea that it “supports phase I and phase II detoxification” contains, as its lead ingredient, a compound whose documented human interaction with the phase I system is the opposite of support.
Silymarin, at target level. Silymarin is not one molecule: it is a mixture of flavonolignans — silybin A and B, isosilybin, silychristin, silydianin — of which silybin is the studied one. The pharmacology that limits it is conjugation. After a single 600 mg oral dose of standardized milk thistle extract in healthy volunteers, conjugated flavonolignans in plasma ran 4- to 30-fold higher than the free compounds, with half-lives of 1–3 hours free and 3–8 hours conjugated Wen 2008. The molecule you swallow is glucuronidated and largely gone within a working day.
Burdock and chicory are inulin, and 100 mg is not a fiber dose. Both roots are storage organs for fructan. A prebiotic effect from inulin is a real thing that happens at 5–10 grams a day. At 100 mg per capsule, a maximum of 300 mg a day NIH Office of Dietary Supplements 2026, they are carrier weight. The arithmetic is not close.
And “detox” has an actual definition that this product does not touch. Phase I is cytochrome P450 oxidation; phase II is conjugation by UGTs, sulfotransferases, glutathione S-transferases and N-acetyltransferases; phase III is transporter-mediated efflux. Nothing in this bottle has been shown to raise phase II flux in a human. The one ingredient with a documented human enzyme effect points toward inhibition Blocher 2024.
Cell, rodent, human — and where it stops
Cells. Artichoke extract inhibits cholesterol biosynthesis in HepG2 hepatocytes, and glucosidase pretreatment strengthens the effect Gebhardt 2002. That is a real, elegant result about a real plant. It is also a result about a plant that is not in this capsule NIH Office of Dietary Supplements 2026, which is worth stating plainly because it is the mechanism this site's own description leans on.
Humans, the decisive silymarin trial. 154 participants with chronic hepatitis C who had failed interferon were randomized to 420 mg silymarin, 700 mg silymarin or placebo, three times a day, for 24 weeks. Only 2 participants in each treatment group met the primary outcome, with P greater than or equal to .99 Fried 2012. That is a clean, large, well-conducted null.
Now the arithmetic that decides this page. Fried's lower arm was 1,260 mg of silymarin per day and the higher arm 2,100 mg per day Fried 2012. This bottle's maximum is 375 mg per day of milk thistle extract NIH Office of Dietary Supplements 2026 — extract weight, with no silymarin percentage stated anywhere on the filed label. Even if the extract were pure silymarin, which no extract is, the product delivers under a third of the smallest dose that has already been shown to do nothing.
The population obstacle, stacked on top. Fried's participants had chronic viral hepatitis and raised transaminases Fried 2012. Silymarin's positive literature is about lowering enzymes that were high. A reader whose ALT is 22 has no room to improve, and a course run on a normal panel tests nothing.
And the artichoke trials the card borrows from are trials of a different product. A randomized placebo-controlled trial of artichoke leaf extract in hypercholesterolemic adults Bundy 2008 and a six-week placebo-controlled multicentre trial in functional dyspepsia Holtmann 2003 are genuine evidence for artichoke leaf extract, at artichoke doses, for cholesterol and dyspepsia. None of that transfers to a capsule containing no artichoke.
Liver Support — which form, and does it matter
The form section for a blend is the filed label, and it should be printed rather than paraphrased. Per capsule: berberine HCl 125 mg (from Berberis aristata root), milk thistle extract 125 mg, burdock extract 100 mg, chicory extract 100 mg; hypromellose capsule; 60 capsules; one to three daily NIH Office of Dietary Supplements 2026.
What is missing from that label is the number that would make it assessable. “Milk thistle extract 125 mg” does not say what fraction is silymarin, and silymarin content in commercial extracts varies widely. Without it there is no way to compare this to the milligram doses used in trials Fried 2012, even approximately.
Solubility is the reason phytosome forms exist. Silymarin is poorly water-soluble and poorly absorbed, which is why silybin-phosphatidylcholine complexes were developed and why the bioavailability literature is a literature about formulation rather than about dose Javed 2011. This label makes no phytosome or complexation claim.
The formulation has changed, and the description on this site describes the older one. Earlier filed labels for the same product name list dandelion, burdock, berberine, milk thistle, stinging nettle and uva-ursi NIH Office of Dietary Supplements 2026; the current one substitutes chicory and drops the rest NIH Office of Dietary Supplements 2026. Uva-ursi's departure is not cosmetic — it is the arbutin-bearing ingredient, and arbutin is metabolized to hydroquinone, which is why it was never a long-term ingredient. If you have an old bottle at the back of a cupboard, it is a different product.
And the names do not match either. The vendor calls it Liver Cleanse; this site calls it Liver Support. A reader searching either name will not find the ingredient list under the other one.
What would have to be true, and how you would know it was not
1. ALT, AST and GGT: predict no change over 12 weeks if your baseline is inside the reference range. The enzyme-lowering evidence for silymarin belongs to people whose enzymes were raised, at doses several times what this delivers, and the best-conducted trial at those doses found nothing anyway Fried 2012 NIH Office of Dietary Supplements 2026. Draw the panel before you start so that “it improved” has something to be measured against.
2. The prediction that cuts against the product, and it is about the wrong organ. Predict that if anything measurable moves it is fasting glucose or HbA1c, and that the cause is the berberine rather than the liver. This is a metabolic alkaloid sold in a liver product, and the most likely true effect of the capsule is one the label never claims.
3. The interaction prediction, which has real consequences. Predict altered plasma levels of any co-administered CYP2D6 substrate Blocher 2024. If you take an antidepressant, a beta-blocker or an opioid prodrug metabolized by that enzyme, this is not a theoretical caution; it is the single most likely measurable effect of starting this bottle.
4. Retest window and the thing that will fool you. Eight to twelve weeks for a liver panel. The confound is that almost nobody starts a “cleanse” in isolation — it arrives with two weeks of less alcohol, less takeaway and more water. GGT responds to alcohol reduction within weeks and does so whether or not anything was swallowed. Attribute the number to the change you actually made.
What nobody has tested yet
Nobody has tested this combination. There is no trial of berberine plus silymarin plus burdock plus chicory, at these doses, for any endpoint NIH Office of Dietary Supplements 2026. Every claim made for the product is assembled from single-ingredient literature at other doses, and two of the ingredients have essentially no controlled human liver data at all.
Nobody has measured phase II flux in a human on any of it. The experiment is standard clinical pharmacology: a probe cocktail — caffeine, midazolam, dextromethorphan — plus an acetaminophen glucuronide-to-parent ratio, before and after four weeks. That would convert “supports detoxification pathways” from a slogan into a number, in one clinic day.
Nobody has published the silymarin content of this extract. Until that appears, the comparison with the trial doses Fried 2012 cannot be done even in principle by the person buying it.
And nobody knows what 125–375 mg of berberine a day does over months. The berberine literature is built at metabolic doses for metabolic endpoints. This is a sub-metabolic dose taken for a different organ, and it has not been studied at either the dose or the indication Blocher 2024.
Liver Support — its own safety story, not its category's
The label carries its own warning and the reason for it is berberine. The filed label states: if pregnant, nursing, or trying to conceive, do not use this product NIH Office of Dietary Supplements 2026. Berberine displaces bilirubin from albumin and is avoided in pregnancy and in neonates; that is the specific hazard behind a warning most readers will assume is boilerplate.
The interaction this product actually has is the one nobody prints. Berberine's human pharmacokinetics run through CYP2D6 Blocher 2024. If you take a medicine cleared by that enzyme, this capsule belongs on the list you show your prescriber. That is a sharper and more actionable statement than any warning currently attached to this page.
A warning about an ingredient that is not in the bottle is worse than no warning. This site's card cautions about an N-acetylcysteine and nitroglycerin interaction. There is no NAC in this product NIH Office of Dietary Supplements 2026. A reader who checks that warning, finds it irrelevant and moves on has been steered away from the berberine interaction that genuinely applies.
What does apply, correctly. Milk thistle is an Asteraceae, so the ragweed-family allergy caution lands. Silymarin's own interaction profile is a conjugation-enzyme profile Wen 2008 Javed 2011, which is a second reason to declare it alongside prescription medicines.
And the framing that matters most. Abnormal liver enzymes are a diagnosis to be made, not a symptom to be supplemented. Fatty liver, viral hepatitis, autoimmune hepatitis, hemochromatosis and drug injury all present as the same three raised numbers and are managed completely differently. A “cleanse” taken instead of that workup costs time that some of those diagnoses do not give back.
Sources read for this page
- NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. Liver Cleanse (Thorne) — Supplement Facts, DSLD ID 336357, label entered 22 August 2025. NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database, retrieved 5 September 2026
- NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. Liver Cleanse (Thorne Research) — earlier formulation, DSLD ID 15933. NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database, retrieved 5 September 2026
- Fried MW. Effect of silymarin (milk thistle) on liver disease in patients with chronic hepatitis C unsuccessfully treated with interferon therapy. JAMA 2012 · PMID 22797645
- Wen Z. Pharmacokinetics and metabolic profile of free, conjugated, and total silymarin flavonolignans in human plasma after oral administration of milk thistle extract. Drug Metabolism and Disposition 2008 · PMID 17913795
- Javed S. Reassessing bioavailability of silymarin. Alternative Medicine Review 2011 · PMID 21951025
- Blocher JA. Sex-Dependent Effects of CYP2D6 on the Pharmacokinetics of Berberine in Humans. Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics 2024 · PMID 39488825
- Bundy R. Artichoke leaf extract (Cynara scolymus) reduces plasma cholesterol in otherwise healthy hypercholesterolemic adults: a randomized, double blind placebo controlled trial.. Phytomedicine 2008 · PMID 18424099
- Holtmann G. Efficacy of artichoke leaf extract in the treatment of patients with functional dyspepsia: a six-week placebo-controlled, double-blind, multicentre trial.. Aliment Pharmacol Ther 2003 · PMID 14653829
- Gebhardt R. Inhibition of cholesterol biosynthesis in HepG2 cells by artichoke extracts is reinforced by glucosidase pretreatment. Phytother Res 2002 · PMID 12112295
How you would know if it worked
Detoxification is not something a blood panel measures. Liver injury is, and that is what this blend's only trial-backed ingredient acts on: ALT and AST on the CMP report hepatocyte damage, and GGT reports biliary stress and alcohol load. Silymarin's actual record is enzyme improvement in people whose enzymes were raised to begin with, which makes this a product with a real read-out and a narrow one. If your liver panel is already normal there is no room for it to improve, and a course taken anyway will produce a page of unchanged numbers.
- Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP) Retest: Every 3–6 months on any oral compound; annually otherwise.
- GGT (Gamma-Glutamyl Transferase) Retest: 6 weeks minimum after any change, because of the 2–3 week half-life. Sooner than that and you are measuring the previous month. Every 6–12 months as routine if you drink, carry visceral fat, or run oral compounds.
Draw before you start, not after. A result with nothing to compare it to answers nothing.
Liver Support — safety & side effects
- Thorne Liver Cleanse is berberine 125 mg, milk thistle 125 mg, burdock 100 mg and chicory 100 mg per capsule. It has no NAC and no TUDCA, so those interactions do not apply. The berberine does: it inhibits CYP3A4 and P-glycoprotein, and it lowers blood glucose — raise it with anyone on metformin, a sulfonylurea or insulin. Milk thistle is in the ragweed family, which matters if you react to that family.
- A 'liver support' supplement is not a reason to drink more, and it does not treat liver disease. Abnormal liver enzymes need a diagnosis.
- Several ingredients here inhibit CYP enzymes and raise medication levels.
The same on every page it applies to. Read it here; it is not repeated research.
- This is one formula with several actives, and it carries the combined safety profile of everything on its panel — the risks do not average out, they add. Check the panel above against anything else you take, because the commonest way to overdose an ingredient is to meet it twice in one day under two different product names.
Not medical advice. If you take prescription medication or have a diagnosed condition, check this against it with a pharmacist or doctor — pharmacists are underused and free.
- When to take it, and what to take it with
- Which form actually absorbs
- Who it's worth it for
- Best-in-class brand pick
- Coach Cam's stacks and notes
- Fasted or with food, and when in the day
- Morning or night, and why that window
- Around training, or deliberately away from it
- What it must not share a window with
Everything above is free and stays free. Skool is where it becomes a plan — Liver Support in an order, with the rest of what you're running.
Unlock in Skool — $10/mo →Bloodwork to run alongside Liver Support
Baseline first, then again at 8–12 weeks.
| Marker | What it’s watching for |
|---|---|
| Complete Blood Count (CBC) with Differential | White cells and their differential — the actual immune measurement |
| Vitamin D (25-Hydroxy) | The deficiency with the most credible immune evidence |
| Zinc, Plasma | Real deficiency impairs immune function; excess doesn't help |
| Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP) | Liver and kidney, since 'detox' is what those two organs do |
The Frequent Illness & Immune Resilience panel covers these in one order — 8 markers, $97.65 with the discount applied.
Check results you already have → · All 103 markers A–Z
Liver Support — frequently asked questions
What is Liver Support?
Thorne Liver Cleanse. The filed label declares four actives per capsule: berberine HCl 125 mg from Berberis aristata root, milk thistle extract 125 mg, burdock extract 100 mg and chicory extract 100 mg, taken one to three times daily. There is no artichoke and no dandelion in it. The drug-interaction risk in this bottle belongs to the berberine, not to the milk thistle.
What is the suggested dose of Liver Support?
As directed, often as a periodic supportive course. This is a general reference for education only — statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and this is not medical advice.
Where can I find Liver Support dosing and the full breakdown?
The suggested dose and the full evidence — clinical, correlative and theoretical — are on this page. What's inside Skool is when to take it, which form actually absorbs, the brand worth buying and Coach Cam's stacks.
Where can I buy Liver Support?
Coach Cam sources Liver Support from Thorne, with 10% off auto-applied at checkout — use the buy link on this page.
What Liver Support is used for
Liver Support appears under 2 goals in the goal router.
Related Immune & Detox supplements
Where this goes next
The pages here are the frameworks. The protocols — the dosing, the order to correct things in, the week-by-week schedule and what to retest — are inside Skool.