Your Don't Need To Detoxify Your Liver

~Ways to support this major organ

The liver has over 500 jobs it does for your body, all on its own, using nutrients you provide it. Like many myths and misnomers in the natural health field, IE: you have to ‘alkalize’ your body to be healthy or kill cancer, but that’s a post for another time.

So, The Liver. I talk a lot about the liver because it needs support in our polluted world. What we eat, breathe, and put on our skin all at some point needs to be dealt with by the liver. This amazing organ filters the blood and, in combination with our microbiota, clears the blood of waste and pollutants. The crappier your diet is, the harder it has to work. The liver doesn’t store toxins, it flags them if it can’t get rid of them, so these toxins, whether it be cellular metabolites no longer needed, hormones, or other waste products from pharma drugs, pesticides, insecticides etc, will circulate in the blood until the liver has what it needs to neutralize them. I wont get too crazy with these processes, but in essence there are two main phases of detoxification of the liver : Phase I & Phase II. The first phase (cytochrome P450) uses different chemical processes to take apart these fat soluble toxins/metabolites. Once they are taken apart though, through oxidation, reduction, hydrolysis etc, these waste products can do damage if not neutralized and this is where phase II comes in. Phase II adds (conjugates) different molecules through several processes like sulfation and methylation, which makes these waste products water soluble and then sends them off to the kidneys to excrete. Waste products are sent off in the bile too, so eating bitter foods helps excrete bile. Your body needs certain nutrients in phase I and phase II pathways to properly dispose the waste. Again, a healthy microbiota (diversity is key) is important since some of these more pathogenic bugs like to remove the tags given by the liver.

This is the diagram I have in the shop I show people when I’m getting into the weeds about the liver. I’m not sure who to give the credit too.

This diagram gives a nice simple overview of the jobs the liver does and what it needs to complete these jobs. So I suggest people either supplement or eat (or both) the nutrients needed. As you can see here glutathione is used for both phase I and phase II detox……so this important nutrient (an antioxidant), oftentimes depleted in many modern diseases, is essential for proper detoxification of the blood and body. Glutathione is available through diet by eating foods that contain amino acids cysteine, glycine, and glutamic acid IE: cruciferous vegetables broccoli, kale, cabbage, and alliums: onions and garlic. Co-factors for glutathione production also include vitamin C and trace minerals like selenium. Basically eat the rainbow and keep it whole.

Support the detox process by avoiding certain behaviors and foods. Smoking slows down phase II and speeds up phase I, so your body has more free radicals floating around in the blood stream. These cause inflammation. Inflammation is bad. Alcohol causes actual liver cell damage and over time can lead to reduced liver function.

I like this simple diagram that explains which nutrients are needs for both phases.

I like this one too. Again, it breaks the nutrients down so you can easily see what you need and once you start researching which foods contain these nutrients you will see that one thing stands out. EAT WHOLE FOODS. Stop eating processed foods even if they have been ‘enriched’. All that means is they added back in nutrients that were there prior to manufacture. Cereals are a great example of this. White flour is another.

Some people have a hard time methylating. Methylation also happens on the cellular level and is inhibited in those that carry the MTHFR and COMT genes. Support this by supplementing a methylated B complex, namely folic acid and B12.

Herbs to consider getting into your health regime are many and they are called hepatics. Others are called alteratives (blood cleansers). Some hepatics are also alteratives which tend to be bitter. The actions of these plants are as follows: hepato-protective, hepatic trophorestorative, and anti-hepatotoxic. So respectively: liver protective (doesn’t let the liver get damaged), liver normalizing and restorative, and the last one is used when there is actual damage to the liver. Herbs I use are as follows:

Milk thistle (Sylibum marianum): helps with both phase I and II. Sylimarin, a constituent in milk thistle, is a powerful antioxidant. This will protect, support, and heal the liver. It does all three!

Dandelion Root (Taraxacum officinale): is protective to the liver because it provides the nutrients the liver needs to do its job. Also an alterative.

Burdock root (Arctium lappa): Is also protective and has a similar action as dandelion root. Also an alterative.

Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica): contains almost all the nutrients the liver needs to detoxify the blood. Protective.

There are many other plants I use for liver too: turmeric, frankincense, bur bur, bupleurum, wild sarsaparilla, smilax, and many medicinal mushrooms as well (reishi, artist’s conk, chaga).

So, be kind to your liver and give it what it needs to do the job it already knows how to do…..detoxify your blood and remove waste products from circulation so these waste products don’t cause health issues.

~Sara

Sara Woods Kender

sara@sarasherbs.com

Clinical Herbalist

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