- The liver, what an important organ.
It sits just underneath the rib cage
here on the right hand side,
unless you're one of the rare people
who has their organs switched sides,
and then you would have it on the left.
But for most people, the vast majority,
it's going to be over here on the right hand side.
And some people are even fans of getting under there
with your hand and trying to massage into the liver.
But there's lots of other things you can do for it as well
that may be more effective.
So what does the liver do?
So much, right?
It filters blood, it makes bile.
It spreads nutrients throughout the body through the blood,
It eliminates toxic waste.
It breaks down and removes excess hormones.
It stores certain vitamins and minerals for later on.
It's basically a storehouse of minerals
that you can tap into at a later time
when they become necessary.
And if your liver is healthy, you're gonna have more energy,
you're gonna have clear skin,
a regular cycle without too much PMS, stronger immunity,
fewer digestive issues, clearer mind, sharper mind.
So you can really thrive with a healthy liver.
And the liver, it has more capability for regeneration
than any other organ in the body.
You can even get down to having as little as
25% of your liver left and actually grow it back.
It's really wild in that way.
Now, there's things that can go wrong with the liver, right?
The different liver diseases you can see are things like
cirrhosis, alcoholic liver disease.
You could have also on the other hand,
nonalcoholic fatty liver, hepatitis,
you can have viral infections.
And the tricky thing with a lot of these is that
symptoms are not experienced commonly early on
until it's actually quite advanced
and so then you have a lot of healing work to do.
Now, the liver, what's damaging the liver, right?
Of course, alcohol, that's one everybody knows.
Alcohol is not the friend of the liver,
but the liver is also damaged by pesticides, by poor diet,
by drugs, stress, and hormone imbalance,
and also pollution and other environmental manmade toxins
that we're experiencing.
So in the liver, you have two phases,
you may have heard of this.
Phase one and phase two liver detoxification.
And some people genetically are really good at both of them.
Some people genetically are really good at phase one
and not good at phase two.
It can be problematic because toxins get moved really fast
through phase one and they get backed up in stage two.
Some people it's the other way around.
So it's good to know your genetics and understand
which stage of your liver detoxification
needs a little bit more support
in terms of the foods that you're having
and supplements and herbs you might be using.
So in phase one, the liver is converting toxins
into slightly less toxic compounds
and this stage is supported by NADH.
So here, doing everything to increase your NAD levels
is really good.
This may or may not include taking NAD precursors,
things like NMN or NR,
and then also riboflavin, niacin, magnesium, iron,
and certain indoles that you find in cruciferous vegetables
like indole three carbinol and diindolylmethane.
And then we go to phase two.
Phase two is where the liver
makes these toxins water soluble
so they can be more easily excreted
via the bile and via the urine.
And so this part is supported by
sulfur rich foods and compounds.
So here we're looking at things like eggs,
cruciferous vegetables again, garlic, onions, and leeks.
And then you may think, oh, I've heard about like
bitter herbs for supporting the liver.
Bitter herbs actually generally you're gonna support
both stages one and two.
Schisandra as an herb is a great example of something
that supports both stage one and two liver detoxification.
And then vitamin C is another one worth mentioning here
because the phase one and phase two can create
a lot of oxidative stress and can actually be
hard on the liver
and so vitamin C is gonna protect the liver
from oxidative damage.
And then what foods are going to be good for the liver?
We look at things like sour foods,
fermented foods, leafy greens,
cruciferous vegetables you've heard me mention
quite a few times already.
High antioxidant fruits can be helpful again for that
oxidative stress that the liver gets it with
through the detoxification process.
Local honey, coconut oil and apple cider vinegar
are other friends of the liver as well.
So that's food wise, and then herb wise,
some of my favorites here or reishi mushroom,
great liver tonic.
Schisandra, as I mentioned.
Milk thistle is classically one that's gonna be
supporting liver detox,
and holy basil, dandelion and licorice root.
So those are on the herb side.
And then the last thing I want to mention
is that stress is very hard on your liver
so the more you can do to reduce stress,
the more your liver is gonna have a fighting chance.
So of course, the last thing anybody who is in stress
wants to hear is,
hey man, stop stressing, take it easy.
But, it's not all up to you.
You can take supplements,
you can do lifestyle practices, right?
Like you can take things like reishi and holy basil
that are helpful with stress.
You can take magnesium that helps with stress.
You can take CBD.
You can meditate, you can do breathing practices.
You can exercise, you can spend time in nature.
You can go for a walk.
There's lots of things you can do to help modulate.
You can look at adaptogens like reishi, like ashwagandha,
like rhodiola to modulate your stress response.
So, it's not just a matter of using
mind over matter to chill,
there's things that can help you
and you should take advantage of some of these things
and they, in turn, will be helping your liver as well.
So that's the liver.
It's so important for so many areas of your health
and well worth the time to work on your liver health.