Hepatitis C Alternative Treatments

When you're living with a disease like hepatitis C, it's natural to want to try any treatment possible to relieve your symptoms and improve your quality of life. Although there is a standard hepatitis C treatment, it doesn't always work, and it can have side effects.

For some patients with the disease, hepatitis C complementary and alternative treatment offers another option. "One of the things I always say is that, obviously, Western medicine does not have all the answers," says Paul Martin, MD, FACP, chief of the division of hepatology and professor of medicine at the University of Miami. "Patients who have been treated in the past and failed to respond are interested in exploring various therapeutic options."

Yet the research on hepatitis C complementary and alternative medicine has been limited, and no study so far has proven any alternative remedy safe and effective for treating the condition. It's difficult to draw any conclusions from the research because studies on alternative remedies are typically not as rigorous as those used to test medications.

"A lot of what the FDA does is not only to prove drugs are effective, but also that they're safe," according to Martin. "There isn't the same sort of scrutiny of the production of these compounds as there is for prescription and over-the-counter medications."

Determining whether herbal remedies are safe and effective for hepatitis C will become easier as investigators begin to take a more traditional approach to their research, says Victor Navarro, MD, professor of medicine in the division of gastroenterology and hepatology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. "We're [testing them] like pharmaceuticals so we can really know if there is any benefit."

"I think it's possible that in the future, some of the therapies may actually have some benefit," Martin says.

In the meantime, if you are going to try such therapies for hepatitis C treatment or any other condition, talk to your doctor first. Even though herbal remedies are "all natural," they can still have side effects, and many can interact with medicines you're already taking. "The appropriate thing is to explore all the options for your particular liver disease with a specialist," Martin says.

Complementary and Alternative Options

Hepatitis C complementary and alternative treatments range from herbal remedies such as milk thistle, licorice root, ginseng, and thymus extract, to therapies like massage, chiropractic care, and relaxation techniques. Up to 40% of people with hepatitis C who have failed conventional treatment say they have tried other therapies, and many report less fatigue, an immune system boost, and better gastrointestinal function as a result.

Here are some of the most popular hepatitis C complementary and alternative treatments, and what the research has to say about them:

Milk thistle (Silybum marianum) is the most popular herbal remedy for hepatitis C, and among the best studied. Milk thistle is thought to both reduce liver inflammation and have an antiviral effect on the hepatitis C infection. A very small study presented at the 2008 European Association for the Study of the Liver conference suggested that milk thistle might decrease levels of the hepatitis C virus in patients who didn't respond to interferon. However, a previous larger review that looked at several studies concluded that milk thistle does little to reduce the complications of liver disease or improve the results of liver function tests. Though the evidence on milk thistle is so far inconclusive, the herb appears to be very safe, with few side effects reported.