Happy New Year - Time for a Liver Cleanse!

  

Your liver is one of the most hard working organs in your bodies. The liver is responsible for detoxifying everything you put into your bodies as well as packaging up your used up hormones for disposal by the colon. On top of detox detail, your liver produces cholesterol which acts as building blocks for cell membranes and steroid hormones. And when you consume more carbohydrate calories than you can expend, your liver repackages the sugar molecules as triglycerides (triple glucose) to be stored in your body fat. 

I like to "clean house" twice a year—after the holidays and around midsummer.

And once a week, we have a cleansing meal of veggies. My husband calls it Liver Cleanse Sundays (the farmers market is open Sunday mornings where we buy the organic veggies that we don't grow). In the winter I roast root vegetables in olive oil or grill them in the summer. I used to steam the vegetables, but found that roasting in olive oil to preserve more of the nutrients plus the veggies taste great! 

Here's a Liver Cleanse diet I recommend:

For three to seven days, follow liver cleanse diet to rest liver and gallbladder

• Upon Awakening:
  • drink 1 cup of lemon tea (2tbl fresh lemon juice in hot water) every morning to stimulate bowel movement
  • then eat ½ cup of fibrous fruit (apple, pear, berries, melon, not citrus)
  • 15 minutes later consume whole grain hot cereal, unsweetened, no diary

• For lunch and dinner: consume 2 -4 cups of steamed or roasted vegetables
  • roots (beets, garlic, onions, turnips, carrots, yams)
  • stalks (broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, artichoke, asparagus, leeks, fennel)
  • leaves (greens like collard, kale, mustard, beet, chard may be sautéed only in olive oil)

• Drink olive oil and lemon juice 1tablespoon each nightly to flush bile ducts

• During the cleanse: no saturated fats and no protein foods, absolutely no caffeine, no alcohol, no sugar, no processed food.

  

What about Gallstones?

Gallstones are formed by bile salt buildup in the gallbladder. When they pass, they cause tremendous pain. Conventional medicine recommends surgery to remove the offending gallbladder, but the gallbladder performs a vital function in storing bile produced by the liver and releasing it when needed into the small intestine to emulsify fats for digestion. Once the gallbladder is removed, the liver must take on its function. Since the liver has so many other vital functions to perform (detoxification, cholesterol formation, amino acid processing, anticoagulation and filtering of the blood) adding gallbladder duty can tax the liver leading to toxicity, maldigestion and malabsorption. 

Here's a great Gallbladder Flush:

• Mix the juice of 1 orange & 1 lemon
• With ¼ tsp cayenne pepper, 1 tsp minced garlic
• And ¼ cup olive oil
• Drink it up!

Some of my patients use the combination as a marinade for chicken and fish, which is great, but you have to drink it all at once to flush the gallbladder.  A daily dose of gallbladder flush while you are on the liver cleanse diet can be helpful to dissolve bile sediment in the gallbladder. If you have severe abdominal pain, you may be passing gallstones and an ultrasound of the gallbladder may be needed.

  

Here are some Supplements for a Healthy Liver:  Milk Thistle — an excellent herb to help detoxify and heal the liver.  Alpha Lipoic Acid — a fat soluble and water soluble antioxidant that protects the liver from free radical damage and also helps promote detoxification reactions. Curcumin — a spice that has been shown to be anti-inflammatory in the liver and a detoxifier, analgesic, antimicrobial, and antioxidant.  Genesis Gold — An excellent foundation to help detoxify at the cellular level. Contains high percentage of kelp and chlorella as well as sprouted grains.  The herbal complex supports the biochemical messengers of the neuro-immune-endocrine system which promotes healing and stimulates regeneration of healthy tissue.

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Copyright 2015 DMaragopoulos

For permission to reprint this article please contact Deborah@lovedance.com