One of your body’s largest organs, your liver works 24 hours a day, performing more than 500 functions that help to keep you healthy and performing at your peak. Your liver keeps your metabolic system functioning normally, it changes the food you eat into nutrients and energy, and flushes out toxins to keep you healthy. If your liver is not healthy, your whole body suffers.
Main Functions of Your Liver:
- Supports a healthy digestion by filtering blood from the digestive tract
- Secretes bile that helps neutralize fats
- Stores carbohydrates as glycogen that can be used later when you need more energy
- Converts fats and proteins into glucose when you run out of carbohydrates for energy
- Filters toxic substances from the blood
- Aids your immune system by catching potentially deleterious substances such as bacteria, parasites and fungi.
- Makes vital proteins important for blood clotting
- Breaks down damaged blood cells to be eliminated
- Stores vitamins and minerals such as A, D, B12, K, iron and folate
- Controls the production and excretion of cholesterol
- Maintains hormone balance
Your liver is the largest and hardest working organs and if the liver is not working properly many systems will suffer including your metabolism, circulation, hormone balance, and digestion.
The Role of the Liver in Eastern Medicine
In traditional Chinese Medicine, healing the liver can treat many diseases; the liver is the organ responsible for the wood qi and blood as well as the steady flow of emotions. Emotions and physical health are strongly linked. Strong emotions such as anger, tension, worry, sadness and fear affect a specific organ in the body. Irritability and anger affect the liver. Wood qi required upward momentum and has a desire to be straight. As long as the liver qi is healthy and unblocked, the blood vessels will remain open and unobstructed. Stress, anger, and toxins such as alcohol can cause liver imbalances that block blood flow.
20 Symptoms of an Unhealthy
Liver
- Yellow Skin or Eyes
- Increased or severe fatigue
- Muscle weakness
- Decreased appetite
- Bruise easily
- Spider veins
- Itchy skin
- Unexplained weight gain or weight loss
- Difficulty sleeping
- Poor memory
- Difficulty concentrating
- A change in your personality
- Body aches and pains especially in the joints
- Swollen legs and ankles
- Feeling bloated
- Dark urine
- Dry eyes and or dry mouth
- Pain in the center of upper right part of the belly
- Excessive sweating
- For men, enlarged breasts
Aging and Your Liver
Aging is a major risk factor for chronic disease and is associated with the severity and poor prognosis of several liver diseases. Affects of aging on the liver:
- Reduced size, shrinking approximately 20-40%
- Accumulation of insoluble proteins causing “brown atrophy”
- Decreased ability to repair and regenerate new cells
- Reduced bile secretion
- Reduced blood flow
- Reduced ability to eliminate toxins
- Impaired drug metabolism
The physicians and staff at the Anti-Aging and Wellness Clinic can help slow and reverse the signs and symptoms of aging. Our focus is your health and vitality. By optimizing hormone levels, replacing nutrient deficiencies through natural methods and providing education on disease prevention and wellness we can help you optimize your health; decreasing body fat, increasing muscle mass and muscle tone, improving insulin and hormone levels naturally, increasing energy levels and sexual vitality and improving mental acuity.
Common Causes of Liver Damage:
- Aging
- Stress
- Refined oils such as corn oil, peanut oil, canola oil, margarine and shortening
- High amounts of sugar
- Alcohol
- Caffeine
- Certain prescription medications
- Drug use
- Air pollution and environmental toxins
- Herbicides, insecticides and fungicides
- Household cleaning supplies
- Too much protein in your diet
- Some prescription drugs
- Overeating
Boosting the Health of Your Liver
- Liver boosting supplements including dandelion root, milk thistle and turmeric
- Eat an anti-inflammatory diet including foods such as leafy greens, fresh herbs, raw honey, green tea and apple cider vinegar
- Stay calm- participate in activities that calm the mind and relax the body such as yoga or meditation
- Avoid alcohol
- Avoid over exercising and include less stressful exercise such as swimming or walking
A liver detox can improve liver function, maintain healthy cholesterol levels and improve the function of the gallbladder and pancreas. Benefits of a liver detox include, increased energy, reduced bloating, weight loss, improved blood pressure, remove excess fat from the liver, get bile flowing freely, regenerate damaged liver cells. A liver detox can be beneficial but there are some potential negative side effects. Before initiating a detox or liver boosting supplements we recommend you seek the care of a medical professional to assist you.
Using innovation, the most advanced treatment options and cutting-edge science, we want to help you develop a customized health program that will help you achieve your peak physical and mental performance. At the Anti-Aging and Wellness Clinic we want to help educate, and empower you, to take charge of your health, allowing you to live a longer, healthier and more productive life. Contact us today to learn more about the benefits of anti-aging medicine.
