Natural Liver Cleanse
What is a liver cleanse? Should you try one?
It is easy to understand how a natural liver cleanse might be a wonderful thing to do for our bodies, as our livers are essential to great health.
Some people insist on doing a colon liver cleanse. This involves doing a colon cleanse first and then a liver cleanse after.
Livers are the largest internal organ in the body, and the second largest overall (second only to the skin). They weigh up to 3 kilograms and are located on the right side of the upper abdomen; on the right of the stomach.
Our livers act as chemical processing factories, changing the food we eat into nutrients the body can use and eliminating of the parts which are either harmful or of no use. Here is a short list of things the liver does:
- It manufactures proteins, including albumin and blood clotting factors.
- It synthesizes, stores and processes fats, including cholesterol and fatty acids.
- It detoxifies the body by metabolizing or secreting drugs, alcohol and environmental toxins.
- It is responsible for metabolizing and storing carbohydrates, an important task as carbs are a source of sugar that the brain and red blood cells use.
- It creates and secrets bile (digestive juice) which helps the body absorb fat from the gut into the blood.
- It eliminates or secretes potentially harmful biochemical products produced by our bodies, such as bilirubin and ammonia. Bilirubin results from the breakdown of old red blood cells and ammonia from the breakdown of proteins.
As you can see, our livers are monumentally important to our health. When your liver is not working properly, you’ll probably feel sluggish and possibly nauseous. The state of your liver also affects your eyes, so if your liver is overloaded, you might see bloodshot eyes when you look in the mirror.
Poor liver function can also lead to:
- Frequent bad breath.
- Abdominal bloating.
- Poor digestion.
- Fatigue or unreasonable tiredness.
- Bad moods.
- Decreased immune function.
- Sluggish metabolism (you might put on weight or find it impossible to lose weight).
- Coated tongue.
- Headaches.
- Excessive body heat.
- Cravings for sugar.
If poor liver function persists over a long period of time, it can also cause serious kidney, brain, heart and cardiovascular problems, including cancer. Many chronic diseases begin with poor liver function.
What is a natural liver cleanse?
The main feature of a natural liver cleanse is the fact that it’s natural. That is, no drugs will enter your body and no pharmaceutical companies will make a few bucks.
Simply put, a natural liver cleanse is simply the process of cleansing your liver naturally. Let’s take a closer look at what you would do if you decided to do a natural liver cleanse.
There are a variety of popular liver cleanse diets, each with a slightly different natural liver cleanse recipe. Despite the differences, most cleanses have the same basic elements.
Before you start the cleanse, you will probably be advised to prepare by eating a light diet, made up of unprocessed, raw foods. Many programs will also recommend apple juice as it helps to soften any gallstones, making it easier for them to pass (see Liver Gallbladder Cleanse for more info).
Most cleanses take place over the course of two days. As such, schedule your cleanse on a weekend so it won’t interfere with your day-to-day activities. On the first day, you’ll consume the ingredients required by the cleanse at specified times. On the second day, you’ll be resting and giving your body time to recuperate.
Usually, on the first day of the liver cleanse, you’ll stop eating after a certain time during the day. You’ll be told to consume things like grapefruit (to get the awesome grapefruit health benefits) and Epsom salts with water at different intervals. The more strict cleanses will also require that you use an enema to cleanse the intestines before you begin.
Before sleeping at night, you’ll drink a little olive oil. When you lie down to sleep, the oil will flow to your liver and help to facilitate the cleansing.
Upon waking the next morning, you’ll begin with another Epsom salt and water mixture, and then spend the day resting. Grab some awesome movies or a great book and plonk yourself on the couch for the day.
Soon, you’ll be able to eat again, but it’s best to start with light, easily digestible foods. You may have a couple of bowel movements that contain the results of the liver cleanse. Typically, they will be a soft yellow in color and may contain green pellets that float. These green pellets are gallstones that have made their exit during the flush.
One way to enhance the benefits is to do a milk thistle liver cleanse, which involves doing the cleanse as normal, but taking milk thistle for around 3 weeks after the cleanse. Milk thistle aids the recovery and speeds up the liver’s rebuilding process.
Should you try one?
It depends.
A natural liver cleanse is safe for most people. Those who should not cleanse include children, pregnant or lactating women or people with chronic health conditions.
Given the importance of our livers and the immense danger of a poorly functioning liver, it is a great idea to do a natural liver cleanse. But before you do anything, talk your doctor.
