The liver is the largest organ in the body and it plays a vital role, performing many complex functions which are essential for life. Your liver serves as your body’s internal chemical power plant. While there are still many things we do not understand about the liver, we do know that it is impossible to live without it, and the health of the liver is a major factor in the quality of one’s life.

Signs of liver problems:
“A brief survey of mild liver dysfunction symptoms sounds like a description of “normal” modern life. These might include chronic fatigue and feeling tired after meals. Depression, mood instability, and irrational anger and temper flare-ups may be liver related. PMS symptoms, including breast soreness and sensitivity, depression, hypoglycemia and irritability, may be liver related. Morton Biskind, M.D., published several articles in endocrinology journals in the early 1940′s linking PMS to a B-vitamin and protein deficient liver’s difficulty in de-activating estrogen. Nausea, dietary fat intolerance, foul smelling gas, swollen belly, loss of appetite, constipation and diarrhea are some of the digestive toxic-liver symptoms. Aching joints and muscles, sore feet, psoriasis, and slow wound healing are common dysfunction symptoms. Headaches (especially behind the eyes,) insomnia, difficulty awakening, poor memory, and difficulty concentrating are possible brain liver symptoms.” (www.hepatitis.org.uk)

Some important liver functions:
• converting food into stored energy, and chemicals necessary for life and growth;
• filtering alcohol and toxic substances from the blood and convert them to substances that can be excreted from the body;
• processing drugs absorbed from the digestive system;
• manufacturing and exporting important body chemicals, including bile, a greenish-yellow substance essential for the digestion of fats in the small intestine.
• converting food nutrients for utilization; 85-90% of the blood that leaves the stomach and intestines carries important nutrients to the liver
• prrocessing carbohydrates, proteins, fats and minerals to be used in maintaining normal body functions.

Carbohydrates, or sugars, are stored as glycogen in the liver and are released as energy between meals or when the body’s energy demands are high. In this way, the liver helps to regulate the blood sugar level, and to prevent a condition called hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar. This enables us to keep an even level of energy throughout the day. Without this balance, we would need to eat constantly to keep up our energy.

Once in the liver, proteins are either released to the muscles as energy, stored for later use, or converted to urea for excretion in the urine. Certain proteins are converted into ammonia, a toxic metabolic product, by bacteria in the intestine or during the breakdown of body protein. The ammonia must be broken down by the liver and made into urea which is then excreted by the kidneys. The liver also has the unique ability to convert certain amino acids into sugar for quick energy.

Fats cannot be digested without bile, which is made in the liver, stored in the gallbladder, and released as needed into the small intestine. Bile (specific bile “acids”), acts somewhat like a detergent, breaking apart the fat into tiny droplets so that it can be acted upon by intestinal enzymes and absorbed. Bile is also essential for the absorption of vitamins A, D, E, and K, the fat soluble vitamins. After digestion, bile acids are reabsorbed by the intestine, returned to the liver, and recycled as bile once again.

What is fatty liver and is it caused by eating too much fat?
Fatty liver is not a disease but a pathological finding. A more appropriate term is “fatty infiltration of the liver.” It is not caused by excessive eating of fats. Nutritional causes of fat in the liver include: starvation, obesity, protein malnutrition and intestinal bypass operation for obesity. Fatty liver can also be caused by certain chemical or drug compounds, and endocrine disorders.

Coffee Enema For Liver Detoxification
Coffee enemas have been used by a number of natural health care practitioners, including Dr. Gerson at his cancer treatment center, as a means of detoxifying the liver. Caffeine causes the gallbladder to empty the toxins in the liver ducts and move them out through the bowels for elimination from the body. The alkaloids in the caffeine stimulate the production of an enzyme called “glutathione-S-transferase”, which is an enzyme that facilitates the liver detoxification pathways.

Foods that Hurt
Common foods can lead to liver problems, including excess coffee, any food that contains pesticide residues (non organic foods), junk foods, artifical fats such as margarine, transfats, refined sugars, French fries, fried chicken, doughnuts, chips.

Foods that Heal
Dark green leafy vegetables support liver health as well as parsley, tumeric, radish and licorice (not the candy variety), kale, garlic, beets, carrots, dandelion greens, organic beef, fish and cow’s liver. One of the best herbs for liver health is milk thistle. (Silybum marianum), a member of the aster or daisy family and has been used by ancient physicians and herbalists to treat a range of liver and gallbladder diseases and to protect the liver against a variety of poisons.

“Evidence exists that milk thistle may be hepatoprotective through a number of mechanisms: antioxidant activity, toxin blockade at the membrane level, enhanced protein synthesis, antifibriotic activity, and possible anti-inflammatory or immunomodulating effects.” (National Institutes of Health)

Supportive sources:
Howard Worman, MD, New York Presbyterian Hospital, 2005, abcnews.com
Duke University Health Center, 2005
www.hepatitis.org.uk
National Institutes of Health, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Evidence Report/Technology Assessment: Number 21, “Milk Thistle: Effects on Liver Disease and Cirrhosis and Clinical Adverse Effects”
American Liver Foundation: liverfoundation.org

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