Look after your liver!
Look after your liver!
The liver is the second largest organ in your body and performs around 500 functions, synthesising hundreds of biochemicals that the body needs for daily function and ensuring that harmful toxins are safely removed from your blood.
Our bodies are exposed to toxins on a daily basis that come from a whole host of environmental sources including pollution, toxic ingredients in household cleaning products, beauty products and processed foods. Our livers thankfully have evolved to handle high levels of toxins but it is constantly overtaxed which slows its function leading to an increase in stored toxins in the body where there are high levels of fatty tissue such as the brain, organs and glands (like the adrenals and breast tissue) which can lead to brain toxicity and hormonal imbalances.
Every year we MOT our cars, check the oils are running smoothly, clear any blockages to increase its longevity in order to keep it running as the finely tuned vehicle that it's meant to be.. so why are we not able to do this for ourselves when we are able to look after our cars so well?! And when we start to feel ill, bloated, lethargic, tired or achey we exclaim 'what's wrong with me?' and yet we never give ourselves the time it might take to rejuvenate ourselves. We allow ourselves holidays but more often than not they can be filled with more alcohol than our everyday lives as we let our hair down and relax.
So what can we do to help our livers do the best job they can? There are many small adjustments we can make that improve how we cope with our toxic loads that can be incorporated every day, or you may prefer to have a couple of ‘liver MOT’ weeks twice a year where you focus hard on this important part of your body which has a huge impact on your overall health:
Eat your broccoli! Increase your intake of cruciferous vegetables - these tend to look like little trees – broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale etc. They contain sulforaphane which helps improve liver detoxification pathways. They are also rich in a compound called Indole-3 carbinole which helps with oestrogen metabolism.
Reduce alcohol, freeing up your body to focus on other toxin exposure, take a week off.
Ensure you keep up your water intake, try to drink 1.5-2 litres of filtered water a day (not bought in plastic bottles that might contain BPA and other chemicals).
Reduce your toxic load. Look at the labels on your cleaning products and beauty products, there are so many natural alternatives available on the market now, it’s fairly easy to find ones that don’t contain parabens, chemicals and heavy metals.
Eat lots of beans and garlic, both support the phase 2 process of your liver, speeding it up so that you can eliminate toxins more easily.
Start the morning with a warm glass of water with lemon juice and lemon peel in it - the limonene in the lemon stimulates the liver so it’s a great way to start the day.
Do yoga - exercising mildly and moderately with calm breathing helps glutathione levels, our master antioxidant and stretching and squeezing the body stimulates detoxification.
Take a sauna if you have one in your local gym or spa. There is good research that suggests that saunas can increase longevity and help to remove heavy metals, even just seven times a year - dry saunas have the best scientific evidence with infra-red saunas not far behind.
If you’ve had a heavy session of alcohol either on a night out or a holiday you might want to give your liver some additional support by adding in a supplement like milk thistle, or liposomal glutathione or NAC, all of which have been shown to be effective.