The beautiful organ, the liver, is super important for lots of different processes in your body. The most well-known of these, and more on that later in this blog, is of course the detoxification of toxins and pollutants. But did you know that the liver has a total of 500 different tasks in the package. These include making bile to properly break down the fats you eat, biochemical conversions such as building up and breaking down hormones and immune cells, and even making cholesterol belongs to the liver.
The builder of your body
The liver is an organ of about one and a half pounds, which consumes even more energy in a day than your brain. Your liver is located in the upper right-hand corner of your abdominal cavity somewhat hidden under your ribs. You can also compare the liver to a builder because in the liver many substances are broken down, renovated or built up. For example, the liver converts certain vitamins into the active form, which is usable in the cells. To give an example: the inactive form of vitamin B6, pyridoxine the liver converts into the active form p-5-p, or pyridoxal-5-phosphate. If this process, often due to liver overload, does not go well, you have a chance of vitamin B6 accumulating.
The liver as a protector of your immune system
One of the more important tasks of the liver, which is not known to everyone, is to make new glucose as a source of energy, this is called gluconeogenesis. At the moment when, during illness for example, new energy is urgently and quickly needed, the liver puts almost all tasks "on hold" and breaks down proteins and fatty acids to make extra glucose from them. This is because the immune system can only function on the fuel glucose. So imagine you have a fever, your immune system is very active and then needs the liver as a glucose supplier to keep actively going. Of course, your body makes sure you don't get poisoned so your liver does stay busy getting rid of harmful substances but at a very low level. Therefore, this can cause symptoms such as fatigue, itching, fluid retention and brain fog.
Cleaning your liver: detoxification
You can eat your liver healthy. What we also call detoxifying and restoring your liver. This is to promote your health and strengthen your immune system. The detoxifying capacity of your liver is a separate story. It goes through several phases and each phase requires certain nutrients from your diet. Foods that support liver functions well are:
Garlic, onions, chives, asparagus, oily fish, Brazil nuts, licorice root, eggs, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and other brassicas, dark leafy vegetables such as endive, fresh herbs such as turmeric, ginger, coriander, mushrooms, as well as poultry, radishes and rhubarb.
Detoxifying your liver can occur from a variety of causes. For example, when you yourself actively stop an unhealthy diet, stop drinking alcohol or taking certain medications. When you make an abrupt change in your diet, this can have an effect on your liver, causing you to go through symptoms such as fatigue, insomnia or "musty" odors. This is because your liver goes through a number of different phases during a detoxification phase where it could use some support:
- Water or fat solubilization of undesirable or no longer useful substances
- An additional conversion step so that the substances can be disposed of through urine, sweat and feces
When you are cleaning your liver, whether consciously or unconsciously, it is important that your liver functions optimally and is supported in the detoxification process. To support your liver, we have written a blog about the steps you can best take when detoxifying your liver. Keep an eye on our blogs for tips to support your liver.