Regenerating the Liver: What Does That Mean?
In spite of how confusing and all over the map information found on the internet is, you can always find some shining lights. This video by Nutritionist and Registered Pharmacist, Barbara Mendez [here is her YouTube channel], is one such example. She does a very nice presentation of 7 foods that help regenerate your liver. And by regenerate, she doesn't mean that you regrow an entire organ inside your body the way women ingest a baby over 9 months. What she means is revive a liver that is besieged by a host of toxins. She starts first by explaining what the liver is responsible for. The liver is responsible for 1) your metabolism, 2) maintaining healthy levels of cholesterol, 3) hormone balance; 4) it's the main detoxification organ, and 5) and help synthesize proteins; 6) depression and anxiety are indicted by the liver.
Then she talks about what kinds of foods compromise the liver. And she starts with the obvious one. What compromises the liver? Alcohol. Prescription medication. Acetaminophen, found in over-the-counter drugs, like Tylenol. Viruses. Pollution. Pesticides. Herbicides. "Do not fear," she says "The liver regenerates itself."
Give a listen:
Her list of 7 foods that regenerate the liver is here:
1) Lemon upon rising in the morning.
2) Garlic, 3-4 cloves, raw or sauteed.
3) Bitter greens. Okay, this is smart and a lot more specific than Edward Group's list below. These help to stimulate the release of bile, so have a side of arugula or dandelion greens. Just so you know, bile is the main detoxification product of the liver. It's what gives your feces its brown color. If your feces is pale, yellow, or white, then that means that your liver is not producing enough bile. Tom Cowan explains that "bile turns the stool brown and bile is the main detoxification 'product' of the liver."
5) Avocados stimulates production of glutathione.
6) Beets have lots of vitamins and minerals, essential for liver health. Thin bile and detoxify your liver. Mix them with walnuts and olive oil.
7) Cabbage. Anything in the cruciferous family would be great. Sulforaphane helps produce glutathione. Red cabbage is better than the white cabbage.
Though I like her list and am reluctant to post anymore information beyond what she includes in her message, I also feel duty bound to include at least one conflicting opinion to hers. Maybe not conflicting, maybe comparative and certainly alternative. You could stop reading here, for what she offers is the best I've heard so far. Before her video, I did find Dr. Edward F. Group's video on the same subject. His video has over 2 million views (I don't know how he does it). Barbara's video has only 50,520 views as of January 15, 2016. Before Edward Group's video, I found Tom Cowan's article at Weston A. Price Foundation. His recommendation does not stray too far from Mendez's or Group's.
Tom Cowan at the Weston A. Price Foundation explains:
Then she talks about what kinds of foods compromise the liver. And she starts with the obvious one. What compromises the liver? Alcohol. Prescription medication. Acetaminophen, found in over-the-counter drugs, like Tylenol. Viruses. Pollution. Pesticides. Herbicides. "Do not fear," she says "The liver regenerates itself."
Give a listen:
Her list of 7 foods that regenerate the liver is here:
1) Lemon upon rising in the morning.
2) Garlic, 3-4 cloves, raw or sauteed.
3) Bitter greens. Okay, this is smart and a lot more specific than Edward Group's list below. These help to stimulate the release of bile, so have a side of arugula or dandelion greens. Just so you know, bile is the main detoxification product of the liver. It's what gives your feces its brown color. If your feces is pale, yellow, or white, then that means that your liver is not producing enough bile. Tom Cowan explains that "bile turns the stool brown and bile is the main detoxification 'product' of the liver."
5) Avocados stimulates production of glutathione.
6) Beets have lots of vitamins and minerals, essential for liver health. Thin bile and detoxify your liver. Mix them with walnuts and olive oil.
7) Cabbage. Anything in the cruciferous family would be great. Sulforaphane helps produce glutathione. Red cabbage is better than the white cabbage.
Though I like her list and am reluctant to post anymore information beyond what she includes in her message, I also feel duty bound to include at least one conflicting opinion to hers. Maybe not conflicting, maybe comparative and certainly alternative. You could stop reading here, for what she offers is the best I've heard so far. Before her video, I did find Dr. Edward F. Group's video on the same subject. His video has over 2 million views (I don't know how he does it). Barbara's video has only 50,520 views as of January 15, 2016. Before Edward Group's video, I found Tom Cowan's article at Weston A. Price Foundation. His recommendation does not stray too far from Mendez's or Group's.
Tom Cowan at the Weston A. Price Foundation explains:
The treatment of the liver always starts with the diet. As well as doing the obvious things like removing as much toxicity as possible by eating only organic or biodynamic foods, the emphasis in the diet should be on greens, the bitter and sour tastes, and the healthy consumption of saturated fats. Protein intake should be low to moderate but healthy raised animal fats should be consumed as tolerated. I tell patients to start every morning with a glass of water with a half of lemon squeezed into the water and then eat some animal fat (especially grass-fed butter or ghee) and greens (such as dandelion greens or the more bitter greens) at every meal. The green color is the most pure reflection of plant life and this stimulates the detoxification processes in the liver. The fats are used by the liver to help make the enzymes that do this detoxification work. The mixture of cod liver oil and butter oil helps to make sure a supply of healthy fats and fatsoluble vitamins is available to nourish your liver.
The difference, and perhaps it was taken for granted by the other two, was to, one, make sure protein consumption is low. Start with that--if you need an immediate or urgent liver detox. Next, he recommends consuming lemons. Aha! There it is--the ubiquitous lemon. Better get some today. This should be a daily regimin. If it's too strong cut it with grassfed, pasteured butter or olive oil as suggested by the Corrihers. Whereas Dr. Group recommends "olive oil, flax seed oil, and hemp oil," Cowan recommends animal fat instead of plant fat. Cowan also recommends green [leafy] vegetables, the bitter the better. So here he is in alignment with Mendez. He explains that "The green color is the most pure reflection of plant life and this stimulates the detoxification processes in the liver. The fats are used by the liver to help make the enzymes that do this detoxification work. The mixture of cod liver oil and butter oil helps to make sure a supply of healthy fats and fat soluble vitamins is available to nourish your liver."
Interesting. So not too divergent from the other two. Simply a little bit of this, a little bit of that to round out the picture on how to regenerate the liver.
Interesting. So not too divergent from the other two. Simply a little bit of this, a little bit of that to round out the picture on how to regenerate the liver.
WHAT ABOUT MEDICINALS FOR THE LIVER?
We've all heard of sillymarin. But have you ever heard of Schizandra? Neither had I until today. Cowan continues:
For medicines, the liver is nourished mostly by plants with a bitter taste, and by therapeutic oils. The best studied plants for liver nourishment include milk thistle and schisandra. These two herbs come together in the Mediherb product called Livco, which has been shown to promote healthy liver function. In fact, milk thistle extract (called silymarin) is used as an intravenous medicine in European hospitals to treat acute poisonings, as with Tylenol overdose. The dose of Livco is one tablet three times per day.
The therapeutic oil to use is the castor oil packs described by Edgar Cayce in many of his readings. Given under a heating pad applied to the liver for two hours, from one to seven times per week, the castor oil stimulates both phases of liver detoxification and is a tried and true medicine for helping all parts of liver function.
There are many other medicines, and bitters and other products that help liver and bile function properly, including coffee enemas which are a proven medicine used by cancer patients all over the world for stimulating liver detoxification.
These suggestions will point you to the way to regain a healthy liver and the vitality that this confers.
Purified extract from a non-GMO Cucumis melo melon has been found to be rich in superoxide dismutase(SOD), the first enzyme in your body's mitochondrial oxidant protection system.19,20 Melon-derived SOD quickly converts primary free oxygen radicals into hydrogen peroxide.
That hydrogen peroxide must be rapidly converted into water to complete the mitochondrial oxidant detoxification process. That task is handled by a second liver-protective agent, an extract of the Chinese vine Schisandra chinensis.
Schisandra extract complements the melon extract by stimulating the liver mitochondrial antioxidant enzyme, glutathione peroxidase, that converts hydrogen peroxide to water.
In the presence ofboth adequate SOD and enhanced glutathione peroxidase activity, mitochondria can readily convert deadly reactive oxygen species first to hydrogen peroxide and then to harmless water.
Now let's examine the data on just how well each component works to protect your body from the punishing effects of NAFLD.
I don't know about Schizandra, so I can't really comment on it. So far I really like Mendez's recommendations.
Here is Dr. Edward F. Group's recommendation [Dr. Edward F. Group III, DC, NP, DACBN, DCBCN, DABFM.], and I think that you will find that they are quite similar to Mendez's with a few excdeptions.
1) Garlic. Barbara Mendez says to take 3-4 cloves a day. Wow!
2) Grapefruit and grapefruit juice helps flush out carcinogens and other toxins. Hmm.
3) Beets and carrots help stimulate overall liver function.
4) Green tea, liver-loving beverage full of plants known to assist the liver's overall function.
5) Leafy green vegetables are one of the most powerful allies in liver detoxification. Raw, cooked, or juiced, these green vegetables are high in plant chlorophylls suck up environmental toxins from the blood stream.
6) Avocados, a nutrient superfood helps the body produce glutathione which is necessary for the liver to cleanse harmful toxins.
7) Apples, high in pectin and quercetin and helps release toxins from the digestive tract which makes it easier for your liver to handle the toxic load during the cleansing process.
8) Olive oil, flax seed oil, and hemp oil are all great for the liver. When used in moderation, they help the body produce a lipid base that can suck up harmful toxins, thereby taking some of the burden off of the liver. Good to know.
9) Whole Grains. Brown rice, which is rich in B Vitamins improve the overall fat metabolization and liver function and relieve liver congestion.
10) Cruciferous vegetables as opposed to green leafy vegetables add necessary liver enzymes to the liver and support it. These enzymes will help flush out carcinogens and other toxins from the body.
11) Lemons and limes. The Vitamin C and citrus content help synthesize toxic material into substances that can be absorbed by water. Oh, I see, so you want both fat soluble and water soluble substances that break down toxins, creating a cleaner or clearer path for other nutrients to be absorbed. Drinking fresh-squeezed lemon in the morning will help stimulate your liver.
12) Walnuts, high in the amino acid, arginine, help to detox ammonia from the liver. Oh, this is good! Walnuts also supports glutathione in the liver.
13) Cabbage, much like broccoli and cauliflower, activates two crucial detoxifying enzymes that also help the liver flush out toxins.
14) Turmeric, the liver's favorite spice, assists the enzymes that actively flush out known dietary toxins.
Artichokes, Asparagus, Kale, Brussel Sprouts are other vegetables that serve your liver. Eat these foods and they will help your liver function properly.
Still, he recommends a liver cleanse two to three times a year will help to expunge harmful toxins trapped inside your liver. At the end, he states that to find liver/gall bladder detox programs, go to his site, globalhealingcenter.com.
Here is Dr. Edward F. Group's recommendation [Dr. Edward F. Group III, DC, NP, DACBN, DCBCN, DABFM.], and I think that you will find that they are quite similar to Mendez's with a few excdeptions.
1) Garlic. Barbara Mendez says to take 3-4 cloves a day. Wow!
2) Grapefruit and grapefruit juice helps flush out carcinogens and other toxins. Hmm.
3) Beets and carrots help stimulate overall liver function.
4) Green tea, liver-loving beverage full of plants known to assist the liver's overall function.
5) Leafy green vegetables are one of the most powerful allies in liver detoxification. Raw, cooked, or juiced, these green vegetables are high in plant chlorophylls suck up environmental toxins from the blood stream.
6) Avocados, a nutrient superfood helps the body produce glutathione which is necessary for the liver to cleanse harmful toxins.
7) Apples, high in pectin and quercetin and helps release toxins from the digestive tract which makes it easier for your liver to handle the toxic load during the cleansing process.
8) Olive oil, flax seed oil, and hemp oil are all great for the liver. When used in moderation, they help the body produce a lipid base that can suck up harmful toxins, thereby taking some of the burden off of the liver. Good to know.
9) Whole Grains. Brown rice, which is rich in B Vitamins improve the overall fat metabolization and liver function and relieve liver congestion.
10) Cruciferous vegetables as opposed to green leafy vegetables add necessary liver enzymes to the liver and support it. These enzymes will help flush out carcinogens and other toxins from the body.
11) Lemons and limes. The Vitamin C and citrus content help synthesize toxic material into substances that can be absorbed by water. Oh, I see, so you want both fat soluble and water soluble substances that break down toxins, creating a cleaner or clearer path for other nutrients to be absorbed. Drinking fresh-squeezed lemon in the morning will help stimulate your liver.
12) Walnuts, high in the amino acid, arginine, help to detox ammonia from the liver. Oh, this is good! Walnuts also supports glutathione in the liver.
13) Cabbage, much like broccoli and cauliflower, activates two crucial detoxifying enzymes that also help the liver flush out toxins.
14) Turmeric, the liver's favorite spice, assists the enzymes that actively flush out known dietary toxins.
Artichokes, Asparagus, Kale, Brussel Sprouts are other vegetables that serve your liver. Eat these foods and they will help your liver function properly.
Still, he recommends a liver cleanse two to three times a year will help to expunge harmful toxins trapped inside your liver. At the end, he states that to find liver/gall bladder detox programs, go to his site, globalhealingcenter.com.
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