Love Your Amazing Liver
By Amy Lupton
Many cultures throughout time have thought there was something special about the amazing organ, the liver.
The Babylonians attributed magical powers to liver and used it for divinations. The Greeks considered the liver as the home of all human emotions. The liver was the organ that was closest to the divine presence according to Greeks. The Roman physician Galen called it the “seat of the nutritive and vegetative faculties” essentially meaning it made everything else happen! The Chinese think it is the center of emotional health still to this day, and when the liver is compromised then the emotions of anger are apparent.
It’s good to pay attention to this amazing wonder in your body.
Let’s look at some amazing facts about your liver from legacyfacts.com
Every single vertebrate (animals with a backbone, or spinal column) has a liver discovered.
The liver weighs about 3 pounds and is reddish-brown in color. The liver has two parts-the lobe on the right and the lobe on the left. The lobe on the right is bigger than the lobe on the left.
The Liver is the most complex of all the metabolic organs present in our body and is also the largest of all.
The Liver is made up of around 10 percent fat. The percentage is rising in fatty liver, particularly among alcoholics. The fatty liver fails at storing glycogen that is made from glucose from food.
The Liver is responsible for performing more than 500 different vital body functions.
When you have a cut, your liver helps you. The liver makes the chemicals, enzymes, and other factors used to clot your blood. If your liver is ill, it doesn't do these very important things, so you'll easily bleed.
The liver processes almost every medication you take.
The liver also protects our body from the toxins by cleaning the blood from chemicals that are spontaneously in our body due to day-to-day activities.
With all these amazing functions of our liver, its so important to keep it as happy and healthy as we can. :)
Here are some tips as we come into this new year to keep your liver working amazing!
1. Focus on eating plenty of veggies with a side of quality protein
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
This is the mantra of Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. He suggests that the path to health begins with eating ‘real’, or non-processed, food. He describes it as, “the sort of food our great grandmothers would recognize as food”. Vegetables play a starring role in the diet he recommends.
Expanding your usual vegetable routine also will help you achieve a good micronutrient balance and protect your liver. Some good choices are beets, carrots, broccoli, kale, cauliflower, bok choy, greens.
2. Ditch the sugar and high sugar natural foods.
When sugar enters your body, your liver is on deck to handle it. This applies to any sugar, even fruits. All in moderation and balance.
3. Staying hydrated & keeping your water minerally charged.
So important! The liver consists of 96 percent of water stored in the cells, and so it is important to keep hydrated on all levels. When that water is minerally charged, it has a double benefit.
Minerals are the spark of life. They play a vital role in maintaining health and longevity of the body and the liver. Check out our favorite mineral supplements here, along with a couple of recipes.
4. Exercise. Yes and Yes.
According to the NIH, exercise increases fatty acid oxidation, decreases fatty acid synthesis, and prevents mitochondrial and hepatocellular damage through a reduction of the release of damage-associated molecular patterns.
Physical exercise is a proven therapeutic strategy to improve fatty liver disease and overall health of the liver.
Aim for moving most days, getting your heart rate up for at least 30 min a day. Taking a walk or being outside exercising, could have double benefits on emotional health (hello happy liver).
5. Kick out the toxins!
Toxins you breathe, eat, drink, put on your body, on your clothes, in your home, furniture, yard, car can put undue stress on your liver. The liver is the human filtration system, taking in every chemical and producing byproducts that the body has to deal with.
“The liver normally removes and breaks down most drugs and chemicals from your bloodstream. Breaking down toxins creates byproducts that can damage the liver. Although the liver has a great capacity for regeneration, constant exposure to toxic substances can cause serious, sometimes irreversible harm.” Mayo Clinic
Here are some things to watch out for being excess liver toxins.
Alternatives are widely available, and its a wonderful thing to vote monetarily to support companies that will create a healthier environment for your family and your liver! Switch to natural products, chemical-free foods, body care, laundry detergents, yard additives, medications, etc.
Be on the lookout for excess toxins in these areas:
Body care and baby care products, shampoo, body wash, perfume, makeup (check our site for some amazing products!)
Laundry supplies and new clothing that hasn’t been washed
New car smells and cleaning products
Home cleaning products (many anti-bacterial products are harmful and absorbed through skin)
Yard and home products (fertilizers, paints)
Furniture (New, Cleaning products)
Medications and Drugs
Non-Organic Foods, Beverages
Fragrance Items such as plug-ins, candles.
Alcoholic Beverages (see point below)
6. Drink Alcohol Responsibly
You have heard this over and over, and you know drinking alcohol can have a negative effect on the liver. Especially if you don’t balance hydration, mineral balance, and electrolytes.
But many don’t look into the extracurricular chemicals that are in alcoholic beverages that can do more harm than the actual alcohol itself:
Pesticides According to the Save Institute “Conventionally grown grapes are one of the most heavily-sprayed crops (they rank #6 in the EWG’s latest Dirty Dozen list). And wine, like grape juice, is a concentrated form of the fruit, so the amount of pesticide residue will be much greater in a cup of wine than a cup of whole grapes. Look for a clean wine (see below if interested).
GMOs Many alcoholic drinks, such as vodka are corn-based and corn is one of the major GM crops. Other drinks, including beer, may contain not only corn, but corn derivatives like GMO corn syrup.
Alcohols can also contain arsenic, bpa, Floride-filled water, propylene glycol (found in the popular Corona beer). When choosing alcoholic beverages, make sure to get organic when you can, or choose companies that do their best to source and grow clean ingredients.
See our favorite choice for clean wine below Not an affiliated link with Liferoot, we just support the mission for clean wine.
7. Supplemental & Herb Help
When you have a liver working so hard, its always nice to support it with supplements and herbs. They can help regenerate the liver in amazing ways, giving it the little extra it needs to mend and heal.
Here are two of my favorite herbs and supplements to use, as well as some honorable mentions:
Milk Thistle is such a wonderful herb that gives energy to the liver. Milk thistle has been used for over 2,000 years. The plant is native to the Mediterranean region and a member of the Asteraceae plant family, which also includes other plants like sunflowers and daisies. It helps with detox, scarring of the liver, and has been shown to decrease, or even reverse, damage to the liver that’s been caused by prescription medications, antibiotics, pollution, heavy metals and more. Most take it in tincture form, but can be done via pills, tea etc.
Burdock (an herb often used as a natural detox remedy) may help shield liver cells from acetaminophen-induced damage, according to an animal study published in 2000 via Pubmed. Other animal-based research suggests that burdock may also help protect the liver from damage caused by alcohol consumption. Burdock is a wonderful additive to teas, especially with a slice of lemon.
Honorable Mentions: Turmeric, Lemon Balm, Ashwagandha, Cinnamon.N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine (NAC) & Glutathione. According to the Liver Doctor (found at liverdoctor.com), “NAC is the precursor of glutathione and is the most effective way of raising levels in your body. NAC is also very beneficial for the kidneys and lungs and can help to protect them from damage. NAC neutralizes toxins and pollutants including heavy metals that accumulate in the liver, kidneys and fatty parts of the body. Restoring glutathione levels with NAC supplements makes liver cells more able to protect themselves from ongoing damage caused by fatty accumulation, viral infections, drug induced damage, alcohol excess or autoimmune inflammation etc.”
Most take it in supplement form, but it also can be found in liquid. We like the Apex Trizomal Glutathione.
Honorable Mentions: Taurine, Alpha-Lipoic Acid, Vitamin C, Vitamin D
Check out the amazing Mandy Hendricks, Sommelier, and the company Scout & Cellar
Are you familiar with the more-consistent-than-clockwork morning-after unbearable headache that accompanies a night of wine consumption?
Ironically, Scout & Cellar’s founder and CEO, Sarah Shadonix, an attorney turned sommelier, became all too familiar with this feeling during her wine studies. This led her to research and speak with renowned naturopaths, medical professionals and vintners until she uncovered the source of the headaches: up to 300 pesticides and 250 chemical additives imbued in almost all mass produced wine. Crazy, right?! Once she discovered this truth she promised to deliver a cleaner, healthier, better option.
For a bottle of wine to be considered “CLEAN-CRAFTED” it must satisfy the following guidelines:
Grown naturally with no synthetic pesticides (because good grapes don’t need them)
Tended by actual people and not mass produced by industrial agricultural methods
Sustainable, organic and/or biodynamic farming methods
Wildly delicious and always distinctive year after year, like nature intended
Harvested from old growth vines
ZERO grams of added sugar - the average mass produced bottle can contain up to 16 grams of added sugar (that’s more than a glazed donut)
ZERO added chemicals - none, nada, not one trace - of the 250 commonly added FDA approved additives
Vinified by hand, not manufactured in a lab
Slow crafted to extract naturally occurring antioxidants
Low sulfites (most have <50ppm)
Independently lab tested to verify this criteria
If you’d like to have some of this pure, honest, and downright delicious wine delivered right to your front door, you can order at scoutandcellar.com/mandyhendricks
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**I am not a medical doctor. This article is meant to inform but not prescribe, treat or otherwise, so by law I am required to tell you to always check with your physician before doing anything new to your body.