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Wednesday 18 January 2017

Top 4 ways to improve liver function

Living in a world that has toxins at every turn has left our liver function in a hot mess. Everyday touches with toxins in our food, air, water, personal care, and household products has slowly but surely created a burden on this hard working organ that has compromised our ability to detoxify properly on a day-to-day basis.

 Wednesday, November 12, 2014 by: Derek Henry

 Liver detox

 In order to reverse those consequences and optimize your liver function going forward, keep these 4 factors in mind.

Incorporate proper foods and eating habits

To safely begin detoxifying the liver, you don't want to run out and get the ingredients for the master cleanse or buy a potent herbal liver detoxification kit. Rather, you want to focus first on your diet and proper eating habits first.

You need to rest your digestive tract by eating smaller and lighter meals that are nutrient dense and easily assimilated and always stopping when you feel around 80% full. Some good options that fit this bill are low sugar smoothies, juices, salads, soups, and fermented foods like sauerkraut and coconut kefir. Stay as raw and low sugar as possible so as to rest your liver function and provide it with the necessary enzymes to properly do its job of detoxification.

Eliminate foods, products, and daily habits that hurt your liver

On the flip side, you need to eliminate or largely avoid foods and habits that will slow down or compromise liver function. This includes eating fats from animal meat, butter, dairy, and vegetable oils. Refined flour products, sugar, alcohol, and caffeine will also weaken the liver, primarily due to digestive distress and excessive sugar/starch handling that is required. Avoiding any foods that are GMO is also incredibly important.

Also, do your best to avoid chemicals in your food supply by making cleaner choices, and purify your water and air appropriately. Take note of personal care and household products that contain unrecognizable ingredients and substitute them with natural products.

Finally, realize that any prescriptions or medications are especially damaging to the liver and will always compromise its function. Lack of sleep and negative thoughts also contribute to its decline, so improving your sleep patterns and mindset are a must.

Consume liver detoxifying foods and herbs

To crank up your liver detoxification a bit more, focus on foods and herbs that are noted as being especially cleansing to the liver, including:
  • Broccoli
  • Cabbage
  • Beets
  • Garlic
  • Onions
  • Walnuts
  • Avocados
  • Apples
  • Grapefruit
  • Leafy green vegetables
  • Sauerkraut
  • Coconut kefir
Popular herbs that are well known to clean up liver function include:
  • Milk thistle
  • Dandelion
  • Burdock root
  • Artichoke
  • Turmeric
Consuming these foods and herbs on a consistent basis will help support, detoxify, and nourish your liver so that it can become healthy again and remove toxins on a day-to-day basis.

Improve your digestion

The gastrointestinal tract serves as the first line of defense once toxins have entered the body. If it becomes compromised, it allows disease causing agents to take root, often to the point that they break through the intestinal membrane and get into the bloodstream.

Once the bowels have become toxic, the rest of the body will soon follow. If the intestines keep on letting toxins through, the liver will bear most of the burden of eliminating these toxins by filtering and rendering these substances harmless and excreting them out of the body through the urine and stool. This is why improving your digestion is critical, to ensure there is not an excessive and consistent stream of toxins for your liver to deal with, or it will eventually become severely compromised.

If you're looking for an easy detox plan, see the first source below. To learn more about the extent of your liver damage, visit Signs of Liver Damage. To clean up your digestive system, check out Top 5 Plant Based Foods That Improve Digestion.

Sources:
Healthwise: Posted by at
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