Q: What are the ten best foods for your liver?
Garlic: helps to activate liver enzymes that help your body flush out toxins. Garlic also holds high amounts of allicin and selenium, two natural compounds that aid in liver cleansing.

Grapefruit: help boost production of liver detoxification enzymes that help flush out carcinogens and other toxins. It is high in both vitamin C and antioxidants properties.

Beets: Extremely high in plant-flavonoids and beta-carotene, eating beets can help stimulate and improve overall liver function.

Leafy Greens: Distinct ability to neutralize heavy metals, chemicals and pesticides, these cleansing foods offer a powerful protective mechanism for the liver.

Green Tea: Is full of plant antioxidants known as catechins, a constituent known to assist the livers overall functions.

Avocados: helps the body produce glutathione, which is necessary for the liver to cleanse harmful toxins.

Cruciferous Vegetables (broccoli and brussels sprouts): increase the amount of glucosinolate in your system, adding to enzyme production in the liver.

Lemon: contain very high amounts of the vitamin C, which aids the body in synthesizing toxic material into substance that can be absorbed by water.

Tumeric: helps boost liver detox, by assisting enzymes that actively flush out known dietary carcinogens.

Walnuts: high in glutathione and omega-3 fatty acids which support normal liver cleansing actions.

Q: Why is liver health important?
The liver has many important functions that keep a person healthy. It removes harmful material from the blood. It makes enzymes and bile that help digest food. It also converts food into substances needed for life and growth.

The consequences of mistreating the liver include obesity, a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease, chronic fatigue, headaches, digestive problems, allergies and many other ailments. And although the immune system protects our body from many dangers, it is the liver that protects the immune system from overload.

The liver is the major fat-burning organ in the body. It performs numerous functions for the body: converting nutrients derived from food into essential blood components, storing vitamins and minerals, regulating blood clotting, producing proteins and enzymes, maintaining hormone balances, and metabolizing and detoxifying substances that would otherwise be harmful to the body. The liver also makes factors that help the human immune system fight infection, removes bacteria from the blood, and makes bile, which is essential for digestion.

The Liver plays a major role in metabolism and has a number of functions in the body, including glycogen storage, decomposition of red blood cells, plasma protein synthesis, hormone production, and detoxification. It produces bile, an alkaline compound which aids in digestion, via the emulsification of lipids.

Q: What are the biggest mistakes or health concerns associated with the liver people contribute to? Excessive drinking for example?
Today our lifestyle (stress, fast paced, convenience) and exposure to chemicals is contributing to the enlargement of the liver. Our liver is 2x the size of our ancestors. This is all due to the fact that today we are exposed to a huge amount of environmental pollutants, foods that are processed; highly treated with pesticides; made from great quantities of fertilizers and genetically modified. Also due to early exposure to alcohol, eating/smoking tobacco and drinking coffee (even decaffeinated) our liver size has doubled and become highly toxic ever.

This all leads to digestive and bowl problems, irritation of the urinary tract and skin, activation of immune and autoimmune reaction, creates heart, brain, joint irritation and can stimulate cancer development.

Q: How common is poor liver health?
Today having a poor liver is very common, as we are indulging more and more in poor food and lifestyle choices.

Q: What are the easiest fixes we can make ?
Avoid tobacco, alcohol, and coffee, white sugar as the liver will convert this into fat and cholesterol, white flour, white salt, processed foods. Avoid products that have mercury like dental fillings, certain vaccines and drugs. This is because mercury binds to sulfur and displace selenium and both these are need by Glutathione peroxidase enzyme that help chop deadly peroxides into harmless water in the liver.

Be Aware of Good Intestinal Hygiene as the liver must filter out and destroy any bacteria and viruses present in our food.

Do Not Eat if You Feel Stressed or Anxious because during these states your blood flow is diverted away from the intestines and liver to other areas of the body.

Eat as much as live, natural and fresh fruits and vegetables. Check if Organically-Grown Fresh Produce, Free of Pesticides, is Available in Your Area. If using eggs and chickens, always buy free- range.

Avoid Constipation by eating plenty of raw fruits and vegetables and drinking water throughout the day. By avoiding constipation you will avoid the growth of unfriendly organisms in the large bowel.

Supplement with milk thistle, MSM, whey protein powder, grape seed extract, vitamin C with bioflavonoids.

Drink 2 liters of filtered water as this helps to cleanse the liver and kidneys and aids with weight loss. Avoid large amounts of fluid with meals as it leads to over burdening of the liver. Do low impact exercise daily (walk).

Q: What’s the worst thing you can do to your liver is it excessive drinking?
Number one thing is eating refined sugar; refined and processed foods. Followed by drinking of alcohol, chlorinated water and coffee. Use of conventional drugs regularly like Tylenol, birth control pills etc. Eating refined and processed foods.