Spring is the best time to cleanse your liver and your body. All native cultures have spring rituals to help the liver eliminate stored winter toxins. The liver is responsible for detoxifying all the chemicals that we are exposed to through our diet, water, personal care products and the environment.
Our amazing liver performs 500 functions. It is located under the rib cage on the front right side of the body. The following are some symptoms of a stressed liver: right side back pain, pain over the liver, right shoulder pain, right sided headache, fatigue, nausea, and irritability.
What Causes Toxicity?
The digestive system becomes damaged from excess toxins. They leak from the damaged gut into the bloodstream. The liver becomes overloaded attempting to detoxify them. This leaky gut can be responsible for poor absorption, fatigue, allergies, autoimmune reactions, and more.
The liver will store toxins in body fat if it cannot neutralize and eliminate them. This creates unwanted body fat. The liver is an efficient fat burning organ, but when it is overloaded with toxins, it cannot burn fat, resulting in weight gain. There are several ways to help your liver.
Detoxify Your Liver
To avoid the detox symptoms of nausea, feeling sick, and headaches, start with a gentle intestinal cleanse. Sluggish bowels cannot expel toxins, producing little benefit from detoxification. Focus on increasing elimination, which will enhance liver and body detoxification.
Fasting is one way to detoxify the liver. It can mobilize toxins, but it can also release them too quickly. Using protein powders can help facilitate detox by reducing caloric load, and mobilizing toxins from the fatty tissues. Supplementing with yellow dock, dandelion and milk thistle herbs help to bind and remove the toxins, preventing a detox reaction.
Use specific foods to bind the toxins and remove them from the body. The nutrients and fiber from fruits, vegetables, and particularly organic sprouts of cruciferous vegetables aid in the liver detox process. Beets, onions, garlic, asparagus and radishes are just a few of the foods that assist in liver detoxification.
If eating these foods causes digestive distress, there are gentler ways to help the liver detoxify using herbs and homeopathic remedies. Homeopathic detoxification is a gentle, effective way to ease the burden on your liver, and to help improve digestion and elimination.
Physician supervised detoxification programs combining diet and lifestyle modifications are available for those seeking significant health changes. Results include weight loss, and changes in blood work, including liver enzymes and cholesterol. It is always helpful to eat organic, drink filtered water (1/2 your body weight in ounces), and reduce your exposure to environmental toxins. Take advantage of the natural cycle of nature and use springtime to give your liver some help.
By Carol Ann Fischer, BS, DC, ND
