Liver Health: What You Need to Know and How to Support It

What an AMAZING and powerful organ in our body! However, the liver really does not get the recognition it deserves…we are focused usually on our heart, stomach, brain, etc. Right? In 2018, it was estimated that there was 250 MILLION people that were sick and dealing with a “mystery” illness. So basically these people were not diagnosed with anything but suffering from symptoms. I can only imagine 2 years later that this number has risen. Did you ever stop to think a toxic liver may be the issue for some of these “mystery” illnesses? Thing is if you rescue your liver you may be rescuing your heart, brain, immune system, skin & gut just to name a few. Why? Because if your liver is overloaded and backed up not flushing out the toxins and taking care of its other responsibilities then it can be damaging other areas of our body or causing them to malfunction as well. What functions is the liver responsible for?

• processing fat and protecting the pancreas
• glucose and glycogen storage
• vitamin and mineral storage
• detaining harmful materials
• the screening and filtering of your blood
• protecting you with it’s own little immune system

When you think about that it does not look like a whole lot of functions. However, in that list above it has over 2,000 responsibilities! All related to storing, processing, filtering, delivering, excreting, and manufacturing. So what does it look like if the liver is off? Well the liver has been shown to be linked to a number of different symptoms and conditions. Check that list out.

That’s a lot of possibilities that the root issue may be your liver. Your liver just showing you that it needs some extra support. We are exposed to so many things in everyday life from pesticides, cleaning products, dehydration, viruses, bacteria, excess fat and sugars from processed foods, plastics, antibiotics and other medications. So before you start with dealing conditions above, what are the signs your liver is struggling? Enter the sluggish liver.

Sluggish Liver

Right now a sluggish liver is so common that 9 out of 10 people actually have a sluggish liver and in 15 years it is expected this will become 10 out of 10 unless we start protecting this precious organ. Let’s cover what a sluggish liver looks like and what happens when your liver is being overworked and underpaid. Here is the amazing thing about the liver. Just because your liver is sluggish doesn’t mean the WHOLE thing is not working up to par, it could be just one part of the liver. Crazy right?!? Your liver is “sectioned” into 5 parts: the top, bottom, middle, left and right.

When one or more sections of your liver becomes sluggish it actually starts working 2 – 3 times harder to make up for its underactive state…it does anything but become “lazy”. The liver is trying keep up with it’s work but it can only take being beaten on for so long before it just can’t keep up. What happens when it cannot keep up? It actually starts to store some of these substances in hopes to “deal” with it later, and when it becomes so backed up that there is no room left to store all these substances. It actually starts escaping back into your blood stream, meaning it can now to damage to other organs and systems in the body. Those bad guys in the bloodstream lead to nothing good and they only start to steal your nutrients and deprive you of things you need to function. In the graphic below, I have listed each of the 5 sections of your liver and what symptoms you could start to exhibit if these specific sections are being overcome by toxic substances.

You may have symptoms anywhere from only 1 section or maybe in all 5. They key is for us to start catching these things and being aware that maybe some of the symptoms we have are actually our liver giving us hints that, “hey, you are throwing a lot onto my already long list of laundry and I’m starting to drown over here! Can you help me out a little here??” The liver sends us signs that we have a smoking gun in the body and it’s about to turn into a full blown fire if we do not get it under control. It is all about whether or not you acknowledge your symptoms or if you try to ignore them.

Here’s the thing it can be so hard to determine on our own if it’s our liver and because it is not something that doctors necessarily look at as the possible issue we could be treating a symptom instead of addressing the problem. A couple of great examples where given by Anthony William, aka the Medical Medium, in his book the Liver Rescue. He gives examples of how:

• if you experience fatigue, the doctor may say it is from stress but it could be an infection of Epstein Barr Virus in the liver.
• if you have hot flashes, the doctor may say it is a hormonal issue, or menopause but it could be the liver holding a virus, heavy metals or toxins over a long period of time.
• Unexplained weight gain? Doctor may tell you you are not eating right and are overeating and should exercise more but once again it could be your liver overloaded. Did you know the liver can hold anywhere from 5- 20lbs of the bad stuff it’s trying to detox out??

The Troublemakers for the Liver

We’ve covered what it looks like when your liver starts slowing down and conditions that may be linked to the liver, and before we get to what to do to help your liver…. Let’s discuss what things are actually HARMING your liver. Can’t start helping your liver if you do not even know what is causing the issue to begin with right?? I once had a friend use this metaphor for the gut but I totally think it is great for the liver too. Pretend your liver is a bucket with tiny holes in the bottom, so that it can clean out the nasty stuff that wants to mess with your health. Some of the bad stuff is getting pushed out through those little holes, but if you keep throwing endless piles of garbage on the top and you are suddenly adding faster than you are emptying it becomes a problem as your bucket is now overflowing. Lets get to naming some of the things that our liver is exposed to and what we want to avoid as much as we can. As you read over this list, some of these things you’ll be saying these are impossible to avoid, and you are correct some are really hard to avoid and/or we do not have control over, but most you have a choice in.

While most are just harmful to your health in general it is because of their affect on your liver is why they become such an issue. Look around your house. What are the things that are harming you that you can do something about? It’s about minimizing your exposures. Get rid of the aluminum foil, buy clean hair care & personal products, throw the chemical cleaning products & watch your food labels/minimize processed foods. These are things we can do to reduce the toxic load that our liver is exposed to daily. It may seem like small potatoes, but each small action can add up to a large impact. It can save you from piling toxins into your liver “bucket”. Also if you change your habits it could positively impact the health of your children. That’s what it really comes down to, is changing our habits so that those in the future can do better than what we have done and hopefully have such an impact that we have less illness in our world.

Cleaning The Liver

Now it is time to focus on cleaning up the liver. You know some things to avoid and what can cause trouble for the liver, but what can we do to make things better? When looking at helping your liver, we do not want to just through ourselves ass over tea kettle into a cleanse. The liver while it would appreciate a lightened load doesn’t want to be forced to suddenly purge everything it’s been holding onto all at once. It may have taken some serious time for your liver to get backed up (or not if you have a gene mutation called MTHFR) so you can’t just expect to drink some liver detox drink for 2 days and things be all hunky dory again. Who knows you may get some energy for those 2 days if your liver responds well but you can’t undo possible years of damage in just 2 days either. Also the other reason you cannot and should not do that is because the liver has a defense mechanism where if you try to purge everything in an unhealthy manner it can go into lock down mode to protect you. Meaning that the liver refuses to release the toxins it has been storing all at once knowing that it will do you more harm than good. As much as the liver wants to let those toxins go, it also wants you to be safe in the process. It is like your best friend looking out for you.

Your liver goes to sleep when you do at night, but it wakes up earlier than you. It begins doing its work to try to clean up some messes in your body while some of your body is still resting. It begins to gather up what it can in your body and is ready to toss it out when you wake up. It needs an exit pathway to be disposed of, if you know what I mean. So a great thing to do is drink about 16 ounces of room temperature lemon water once you wake up. Don’t have lemons? That’s okay just give your body some water to flush that junk OUT!

Next up, do not consume ANY fats before lunchtime. Why? Because your liver can no longer focus just on detoxing once you consume fats because it now has to focus on creating bile to digest those fats. We want to keep the detox window open longer. This doesn’t mean don’t eat, or avoid fats all the time because your body does need some healthy fats each day. It just means focusing on eating foods off this handy list in the morning.

The list of foods above is great not only for your liver once again but your whole body. Want to nourish your body? Enjoy more foods off the list. What about supplements or herbs? I have a list of supplements & herbs that are great for everyday liver support. You don’t necessarily have to take all that are pictured, but most are great for your general everyday health and we should be taking anyway.

If you are suffering from a specific condition that was listed in an image above, you can reach out by contacting me through one of these avenues. I can send you a more specific herbs/supplements that you can look to start helping you with that particular issue. More than one on the list affect you? Pick the one that you think is the primary issue or concern you want to address & we would start by addressing that first and adjust as the body starts giving you signs as to what is really the underlying issue.

Ready to take a larger step? I will be launching a service to help coach you through The Liver Rescue 3:6:9 program developed by the Medical Medium. Stay tuned for that! Check out his book attached in the resources. This program is not for the faint of heart, and you’ll have to be committed. It will be a slow work up to day 9 where we hit it hard! Meal ideas & food lists will be provided.

Not ready to take that step? That’s totally okay! Start with changing your morning routine as I mentioned above, drink plenty of water, eat more liver supporting foods, and add in some herbs/supplements. These things alone will already leave your liver saying, “thank you friend, thank you!”

XOXO ~Brooke

Resources:

• Dr. Axe – How to Improve Liver Function in 5 Steps
• Medical Medium – Epidemic of the Sluggish Liver
• WebMD: Toxic Liver Disease
• My Liver Exam: Avoid This Food if You Want to Preserve Your Liver
• Anthony William: Liver Rescue