Are Toxins Accumulating In Your Liver?

Your liver can become toxic and overloaded by simple things that you probably never even realized were damaging. Your liver is supposed to clear wastes and toxins from your bloodstream. However, if your liver is sluggish and unhealthy, the toxins can remain trapped inside, hindering its normal functions.

Detoxification, an extremely vital process carried out by the liver, can be impaired by the following factors:

• Long term, heavy exposure to environmental toxins, alcohol, heavy metals, and/or certain medications. There is an unprecedented quantity of chemicals being integrated into our environment. These include dyes from printing, hair colors, plastics, alkyl-phenols, PCBs, phthalates, paints, and insecticides, just to name a few. Thousands of tons of these chemicals seep into the environment around the world, which then end up in our food chain. The effects of these chemicals are not yet fully understood in most circumstances. An enormous amount of research has been conducted which describes the relationship between toxin exposure and disease. Today we have many “idiopathic” diseases, where no explanation exists about the origin or development of the disease. It takes many years to prove a hypothesis that toxins could be overloading and damaging the liver. This is largely because scientific research focuses on testing one toxin at a time. In reality, our body is swimming in a sea of toxins. I designed the liver tonic Livatone to help your liver become more efficient at clearing wastes and toxins from your bloodstream, helping to protect your health and wellbeing.
• Production of excess free radicals as a result of chronic infections or autoimmune diseases. The chronically hyperstimulated immune response can cause a lot of oxidative damage in the body. You will experience higher levels of inflammation and use up glutathione too quickly. Glutathione is produced in your liver and it is supposed to detoxify your body and reduce inflammation. People with autoimmunity or chronic infections can become depleted in it. You need selenium and n-acetyl cysteine (NAC) to produce glutathione.
• Fatty infiltration of the liver which has become a major problem over the last decade. Most of the toxins in your body are fat-soluble, so they tend to accumulate in body fat, bone marrow and the brain. If you have a fatty liver, it can draw toxins to it like a magnet. Your liver produces bile, which travels to the gallbladder and then gets released into your small intestine. Bile is a major excretion route for wastes and toxins. People with a fatty liver typically do not produce enough bile. Taking an ox bile supplement helps to top up your bile level.
• Nutritional imbalances and deficiencies of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, essential fatty acids, and sulfur-bearing amino acids are especially required for detoxification. A diet that is deficient in protein and has excess hydrogenated oils and sugar can inhibit detoxification pathways inside the liver cells. Nutrient deficiencies can occur due to inadequate intake, or poor absorption because of gut problems.
• Enzyme polymorphisms – these are genetic variations in the amounts and types of enzymes in the liver cells which can impair the efficiency of detoxification.
• Leaky gut syndrome. If the intestines are inflamed this will allow toxins, bacteria and large food molecules to be absorbed from the digestive system into the bloodstream. These toxins will eventually be carried to the liver where they will need to be broken down and excreted from the body. Removing gluten, dairy products and sugar from the diet helps to heal leaky gut. Glutamine powder is healing to the gut lining and helps to speed up results.
• Medications. Many prescription medications influence the detoxification pathways by either slowing them down or speeding them up. Some medications can cause liver inflammation, so it is important to ask your doctor to check your liver function regularly, especially if you take medications that are potentially toxic to your liver. The potential for toxicity caused by medications is increased drastically in patients who take many different types of medications simultaneously.
• Aging. As we age the liver detoxification pathways become less efficient.

The above statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease.

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