|
Introductions
Despite the escalating health awareness in our culture, it is unbelievable how very little consideration is given to the liver and its vitality in our considerations about health and disease.
This article offers fascinating facts about the significant role of the liver, and explains why a well functioning liver is imperative for our overall health. Numerous chronic physical and mental disorders are the direct result of an overloaded liver filled with toxic food fragments, synthetic drugs, fat, and environmental toxins.
The liver is the largest organ in the body, and weighs about 3 to 5 pounds. It demands about 12% of all your body’s energy to perform over 500 different tasks in regulating your metabolism every single day. The liver is almost certainly the most important detoxifier of all the organs, as it takes poisons, neutralizes them, and what it cannot make harmless, it stores. |
|
 |
These are just a few of the jobs it performs:
• The liver converts the thyroid hormone thyroxine into triiodothyronine, without which energy-depleting hypothyroidism results.
• The liver metabolizes the food we eat—breaking it down to useful parts.
• The liver is a detoxifier that breaks down and protects us from transforming substances such as ammonia, metabolic waste, drugs, alcohol and chemicals, so that they can be excreted. These are called “xenobiotic” chemicals.
• The liver creates Glucose Tolerance Factor (GTF) from glutathione and chromium, essential for insulin to maintain proper blood sugar levels.
• The liver has impressive restorative capabilities, and is the only organ that will regenerate itself, when part of it is damaged.
• The liver breaks down hormones for elimination from the body after they have been used (insulin, estrogen, aldosterone, and adrenaline).
• The liver filters your blood. Approximately 2 quarts of blood pass through the liver every minute to be detoxified.
• The liver manufactures bile salts that dissolve toxins before they are secreted into the intestine and break down fats and fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K) for absorption into the digestive tract. Bile is stored in the gallbladder. The liver generates 1-1.5 quarts of bile in one day!
• The liver is full of tubes (biliary tubing) that deliver the bile to one large tube (the common bile duct).
• The liver is also a major immune system organ. Its filter is called the sinusoidal system and it has special “Kupffer” cells that remove a wide range of microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, viruses and parasites from the blood stream.
• The liver also stores Iron and various vitamins such as D, A and B-12.
• Please keep in mind that ONLY the liver can cleanse the blood stream and we only have one liver!
Toxins and Your Liver
Detoxification has become synonymous with colon cleansing, but doing it effectively also involves liver cleansing. Your liver is essentially the filter of your bloodstream, and like any filter, it can become clogged with waste material. When the liver is affected, its ability to secret bile, filter waste, store vitamins and nutrients, remove pathogens, resist infections, and make important life-giving substances such as cholesterol, glucose, and albumin is compromised. Keeping this lifeline flowing is imperative!
Detoxification is a fundamental part of the human body’s metabolism, and the liver functions as a key player in this process. Our liver is constantly being barraged with toxic chemicals (internal and external origin). Nutritional deficiencies and imbalances add to the manufacture of toxins, as do prescription drugs and alcohol, which add to the stress on the liver by requiring a tough detoxification capacity.
|
The biggest contributor of toxins to our liver is our external environment. The load on the liver today is profoundly more than ever before in history. Toxic chemicals are present in the water we drink, the food we eat and the air (both indoors and outdoors) we breathe. Chemicals such as tetrachloroethylene, p-xylene, ethylbenzene and benzene are recorded as being “everywhere” in the air by the Environmental Protection Agency. How about aspartame example, which is used as an artificial sweetener? Originally, it was developed as a drug by G.D. Searle, a subsidiary of Monsanto. This chemical that is widely used in the food industry breaks down in the body like this:
• 50% Phenylaline - can be neurotoxic - in some people susceptible (those with a genetic disorder called phenylketonuria) it will cause seizures.
• 40% Aspartic acid, which is an ant sting poison that may cause brain damage in the developing brain
• 10% methanol, which is a wood alcohol that turns into formaldehyde (an embalming fluid).
|
|
 |
Other chemicals listed as “often present” were chloroform, carbon tetrachloride, styrene, and p-dichlorobenzene. Just a visit to your local dry cleaner or gas station will elevate your breath levels of toxins.
Starting in about 1930, the release of manmade chemicals into the environment has rapidly developed to over 160 billion kilograms per year. Two surveys have tracked this progression over the years. One is called the National Human Adipose Tissue Survey (NHATS) and the other is the FDA’s Total Diet Survey (TDS). The FDA has found the level of chlorinated pesticides in food to be alarming. DDE was found in 63% or more of the 42 food samples, although DDT and DDE have been banned for use in this country since 1972. Sadly, toxic chemicals that are used all over the world travel easily around the globe with the winds.
There is sufficient evidence today of a relationship between chemical exposure and chronic health problems to realize that our herbicides, pesticides, household chemicals, and food additives are creating a tremendous health epidemic.
What you need to know is that the liver is the gateway to the body, and in this chemical day and age, its detoxification systems are easily overloaded. Come on—thousands of chemicals are added to food and over 700 have been identified in drinking water. Our food is genetically engineered and processed, our animals are injected with potent hormones and antibiotics and our plants are sprayed with toxic chemicals. You think for one minute that the liver is able to cope with every toxic chemical in our environment, not to mention the damaged fats that are present in all the fried foods we eat?
The Big Question?
 |
|
The big question is—what happens when the liver’s detoxification system is overloaded? When the liver cannot do its work, the toxins that we are subjected to accumulate in the body and make us ill in an assortment of ways. They have damaging effects on many body functions, particularly the immune system. An overworked and undernourished liver is recognized to be the root cause of many chronic diseases.
One of the liver’s primary responsibilities is the production of bile, which is its waste product, and also a great digestive system aid, among other things. When the liver gets sick, it gets constipated, and the bile, instead of getting released, backs up in the body. What do you think happens when the liver backs up with bile, which contains bilirubin, an orange-red pigment from the old hemoglobin that the liver eats?
You guessed it—jaundice.
|
Here are but just a few of the symptoms associated with Liver Dysfunction:
• HORMONAL IMBALANCES
Premenstrual syndrome may be more acute. You may have intolerance to hormone therapy or the contraceptive pill.
• DIGESTIVE PROBLEMS
Acid Reflux, hemorrhoids, indigestion, intolerance to fatty foods, abdominal bloating, gall stones and gall bladder disease, nausea and vomiting attacks, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, intolerance to alcohol, and pain over the liver (located at the upper right corner of the abdomen and lower right rib cage).
• EXTERNAL SIGNS
Brownish spots and blemishes on the skin (pruritus), excessive sweating, skin rashes, red palms and soles (which may also be itchy and inflamed), coated tongue, bad breath, acne rosacea, dark circles under the eyes, offensive body odor, red swollen itchy eyes, and flushed facial appearance or excessive facial blood vessels.
• ABNORMAL METABOLISM OF FATS
Roll of fat around the upper abdomen (liver roll), cellulite, abnormalities in the level of fats in the blood stream (elevated LDL cholesterol and reduced HDL cholesterol and elevated triglycerides, protuberant abdomen (pot belly), arteries blocked with fat, excessive weight gain (which may lead to obesity), inability to lose weight even when dieting, sluggish metabolism, high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes, lumps of fat in the skin (lipomas and other fatty tumors) and fatty degeneration of organs.
• BLOOD SUGAR PROBLEMS
Mature onset diabetes (Type II), craving for sugar, hypoglycemia and unstable blood sugar levels.
• IMMUNE DYSFUNCTION
Increased in persistent viral, bacterial and parasitic infections, allergies, Fibromyalgia, hay fever, chronic fatigue syndrome, dermatitis, increased risk of autoimmune diseases, multiple food and chemical sensitivities, skin rashes and inflammation, asthma, and hives.
• NERVOUS SYSTEM
Recurrent headaches (including migraines) associated with nausea, depression, mood swings (anger and irritability), poor concentration (foggy brain), and overheating of the body (especially face and torso).
Note: The above syptoms are customary manifestations of a dysfunctional liver. They can, however, be due to other causes of a more ominous nature. If the symptoms persist, it is vital to see your doctor.
 |
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
