Dietary silymarin improves removal of low density lipoproteins by the perfused rat liver.

Silymarin administered to the rats concurrently with high cholesterol diet normalized the high cholesterol diet-induced retardation of disappearance of low density lipoproteins (LDL) from the medium during recirculating perfusion of livers from these rats. We suggest that the improvement of LDL removal by the liver after silymarin treatment contributes to the antihypercholesterolemic effect of silymarin.