The liver is the organ of longevity and keeping your liver healthy is so important, as its condition determines how well you feel and the health of many other organs in your body.
The Liver functions to:
- Filter & cleanse the blood stream, vital for a healthy immune system.
- Regulate fat metabolism…a healthy liver assists in keeping slim, as it regulates the conversion of Thyroid hormone (T4) into the more active form (T3). A sluggish liver combined with excess abdominal fat, may impair this process,
- Regulates cholesterol levels – a healthy liver creates more HDL good cholesterol.
- Manufactures proteins important for the body’s metabolism, the immune system, and produces energy.
- Manufactures hormones, and assists with detoxing
- Affects the health of your bowel and thyroid gland.
The Liver… Tips for Detox & Immune Support
Hormones – The liver is responsible for manufacturing hormones & together with the intestines, eliminates excess hormones from your body. Stress, toxins, diet, lifestyle, increased weight & digestive health can all affect the production & elimination of your hormones such as oestrogen, progesterone & testosterone.
Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) incorporates a number of symptoms that may be experienced in the last 2 weeks of the menstrual cycle. Symptoms such as fatigue, irritability, depression, anxiety, cramping, fluid retention, abdominal bloating, sore breasts, migraines, cravings & brain fog may all indicate a hormonal problem.
Ensuring optimal intestinal health by taking a good bowel supplement NTS (Biobubble & Digest-Ease Probiotics products) & liver tonic (NTS LiverLove & Immuno-Drive products) is of great importance in regulating your hormones and assisting the liver cells to be more efficient at detoxification. It will assist the reduction of damage to liver cells and may help damaged cells regenerate. St Mary’s thistle is the most important detoxing herb for the liver.
Detoxification of these organs is often the first step in achieving hormonal balance. Nutritional supplements, herbal medicine, exercise, stress management & diet can be very effective in treating hormonal balance.
Sugar & Refined Carbohydrates- The average person eats far more carbohydrate than they need for energy. If you have excess body fat stores, particularly the waist, then it means you have stored energy that you have not used up. Foods made from white flour such as bread and pasta, cakes, biscuits, crackers and pastries all quickly get digested into sugar. This means that they flood your blood with glucose after you eat them. Lollies, chocolate, soda, corn & potato chips are either high in sugar or are rapidly digested into sugar.
By following a healthy low carbohydrate diet your body can burn up those fat stores. Carbohydrate rich foods promote weight gain around the abdominal area & may cause a fatty liver. A high sugar diet can be just as damaging to the liver as excess alcohol.
Eats lots of organic vegetables (5-7 serves a day if possible) & fruit (2- 3 serves) a day. Most fruit is fairly high in sugar, so consume a lot more vegetables than fruit.
Organic & chemical free vegetables and fruit are extremely rich in vitamins, minerals and fibre; all necessary for healthy liver function. They are also an excellent source of antioxidants, which have an anti-inflammatory effect and help to heal damaged liver cells.
Many of the antioxidants in fruit and vegetables are the pigments that give these foods their bright colours. Therefore it is beneficial to eat as wide variety of fruit and vegetables as possible; a few from each colour of the rainbow.
Alcohol – excess alcohol consumption impairs the liver’s ability to metabolise fatty acids & this may cause fatty liver disease and alcoholic hepatitis. Eventually the liver cells may die & are replaced by scar tissue; this is cirrhosis of the liver.
Avoid contacting Hepatitis B or C – Hepatitis is a general term and refers to inflammation of the liver. It can be caused by a variety of factors. Hepatitis C and Hepatitis B are caused by viruses and can cause long term liver damage.