How to Improve Your Liver Function

The liver? Who cares about it? You should, because it’s one of the most important organs in your body. Here’s some of what it does:

  1. Detoxifies the body. That means your hormones, toxins, blood, etc.
  2. Produces bile, which is a fatty substance like soap that helps you digest the fats that you eat.
  3. Balances your blood sugar.
  4. And much more.

In fact, the liver’s function is so important that one of the first things I look at during the Precision Body Transformation Program is liver function. You can exercise and eat “right” until the cows come home, but without a healthy liver, you’re going to have a very hard time losing fat or having good energy levels. So it stands to reason that you should improve your liver function if you have any hope of improving your health and fitness.

How do you know if your liver isn’t working properly? Here are a few clues:

  • Stool color alternates from clay colored to normal brown
  • Having your gall bladder removed
  • Bitter, metallic taste in mouth, especially in the morning
  • Problems digesting greasy or fatty foods
  • Reddened skin, especially palms
  • Taking prescription medications
  • History of alcohol or drug abuse

With clients, we of course look at more than that (including blood work), but this is a good basic start. If you have any of the above clues, you may have problems with liver function.

How do you improve it?

To be honest, the liver is one of the body’s most complex organs, and it would take an entire book to cover this subject, but here are some basic action steps:

  1. Eat your fiber. You get fibre from fruits and vegetables. Fibre helps bind toxins and other materials, taking the stress off the liver.
  2. Get your B vitamins. They are essential in helping you with liver detoxification. The richest sources of most B vitamins (except for B12) are whole grains. The richest sources of B12 are clams, lamb and veal.
  3. Increase your glutathione levels. Glutathione is your body’s strongest anti-oxidant, but don’t go running to the health food store to go and get it. It doesn’t get absorbed by the body very well. Fortunately, your body can make it through a combination of glutamate (not to be confused with glutamine) cystine and glycine. The richest sources of those three amino acids are eggs (for cysteine), pork and whitefish for glycine and cottonseeds for glutamate. You can also get those amino acids in supplements.
  4. Milk thistle is a herb that is often used in liver formulas to assist the detoxification process.

These are some action steps you can take to help out your liver.

But just a word of caution. If you’re taking medications, changing your liver function can seriously change the medications’ effects on your body. It can make the medication stay in your bloodstream longer, causing an overdose (without changing the dose), it can make the medication ineffective, or it can have several other negative effects. If this applies to you, make sure that you do any detoxification programs under medical supervision. I recommend and send many of my clients to Dr. John Dempster, ND.

Short Summary

  • The liver has many important functions, that include:
    • Detoxification
    • Bile production
    • Blood sugar balance
    • Others
  • Things that help you improve liver function:
    • Eating your fiber
    • Getting your B vitamins
    • Increase your levels of glutathione
    • Take the herb milk thistle