The liver is the heaviest organ in the body, and during the holidays, it is also the hardest working organ. Because the liver is your detoxification organ.
Too much heavy (sweet, fatty, alcoholic) foods hurt your liver – and too much even of good stuff can be hard on this most precious organ. But this is probably not the time to preach moderation. So what can you do to survive these taxing times? (I hope you hear the irony in my voice – when half of mankind is still starving).
Everything unhealthy has to be eliminated via the liver: spoiled and rotten food, modern preservatives, artificial colors and flavorings. If the liver is overloaded with rich foods and toxins, you end up with a fatty liver – a diseased liver that cannot fulfill its tasks properly. And if it gets really bad, you end up with cirrhosis, the shrinking of this valuable organ. Fatty liver is reversible with a better lifestyle; cirrhosis is not.
These are the essentials for a healthy liver:
• Drink enough water – not ice-cold. Herbal teas are helpful, especially in the winter season. Some of the herbs below come also as teas – make use of them. Enough fluid will flush out your liver.
• Elderberry juice helps regenerate the liver.
• Keep alcohol (wine, beer, liquor) at a minimum.
• After a big meal, go for a walk. A walk uses up some of the calories you have been ingesting, and it gives your whole digestive system a little boost – things in your stomach can settle, and the peristalsis gets a jumpstart. In Europe, Sundays and holidays will bring people out of their houses in droves – everybody goes for a walk after a feast.
• These herbs help to improve liver function: Most beneficial is milk thistle – you should have it at hand these days. Also helpful are bitter plants like dandelion, artichoke, sage, and gentian root. Most are available in capsules, often in combination.
• Kitchen herbs and spices also help digestion: For instance, the traditional stuffing for a goose is: grind the gizzards, add cut apples, raisins, walnuts and two hands full of fresh (or less of dried) marjoram. No bread!! Don’t know who invented the bread filling…
• A working gut relieves an overworking liver – and a probiotic helps with useful bacteria.
• Fermented foods like sauerkraut, soy sauce and miso help digestion. Traditional kitchens have very specific fermented foods – explore a Japanese or Korean store. Make sure you buy the real thing – not a modern product that still has the taste but no actual fermentation any more in the production process. Look up “fermented foods” in one of my earlier blogs.
• Make sure you eat not only meats and cakes and cookies – but also cabbages, red beets, celery and celeriac, carrots, cucumbers, radishes are famous for relieving a moaning liver.
• Take some very deep massaging breaths: Always start with exhaling. Deep breathing moves the abdominal organs, and oxygen is required in myriad detoxing chemistry processes of the liver. If you feel stuffed, do the deep breathing by lying on your back.
• Stop all unnecessary medications, especially over-the-counter drugs. They only burden your liver more.
And since we are discussing liver health: Hepatitis A can be acquired through food (especially uncooked oysters, and such), hepatitis B and C through sex, drugs and blood. There are vaccines available against A and B. Unfortunately not against C. It might be wise to get vaccinated. Talk to your doctor.
And enjoy the festivities! Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Dead Sea Story
November 23, 2010
Years ago, I found myself in a hotel at the Dead Sea in Israel. The hotel also catered to patients, because it has been shown that sunlight and saltwater improves such conditions as eczema and psoriasis.
The hotel had an excellent buffet with all kinds of healthy vegetables and gorgeous fruit. For me most striking observation was that the patient group flocked around cheese, cakes, cookies, pizza, lasagna, spaghetti with meatballs, and bacon, whereas the other travelers delved into the abundance of fresh foods. In addition, the patient group was visibly more overweight than the others. I had a hard time not pointing out to every patient the damage they were doing to their bodies just as they were seeking the healing waters of the Dead Sea.
You go online for eczema remedies, and you find a thousand products screaming “Here! Buy me!”
This is my simple advice:
1. Get rid of anything you might be allergic to. – Some researchers deny that allergies play a role – I don’t agree with them; but let’s not call it allergies then, but food intolerances. Because in many cases, food intolerance plays a role in psoriasis and eczema – and the Standard American Diet (SAD) is especially at fault. The offending foods? The list I gathered from my patients is long, and dairy for sure tops it. Citrus fruit, wheat (and, by association, barley, rye, oats), soy, nuts have been most often the culprits in my patients. Coffee (including caffeinated) seems to trigger eczema too.
2. Use coconut oil on the affected, itchy, thickened skin. Coconut oil is anti-bacterial, soothes the itch and helps the poor skin to heal.
3. If you can afford, vacation at the ocean. Moderate sunlight and saltwater do miracles for posriasis and eczema.
4. If you want to go the extra mile, get a good probiotic (bacteria that are helpful for bowel health – but not frpm yogurt, take capsules) to heal your gut, and take fish oil capsules against inflammation.
Often this works also for rheumatoid arthritis and other auto-immune diseases, too. An additional biggie in psoriasis is alcohol – avoid it.
Some other ideas why people now get eczema are that babies are brought up in a too clean environment, and that emotional issues play a role. The first we can’t do anything about once you are grown-up. The emotional issue – well, we all still struggle to grow up, don’t we? Can’t hurt to work on that. Read More
Nobody Wants To Talk About Poop
October 23, 2010
When we come back from traveling, our cat’s litter box usually is a mess.
Sorry, I bring up this stinky subject – but it has relevance not only for cats and pets, but also for humans.
Of course, bodily waste products don’t smell like roses. But they also should not smell THAT disgustingly. If they do – in pets and people – chances are something is wrong with the digestive tract.
Now the hardest part is to compare your bowel movements with everybody else’s because we usually are discrete about our defecation results. We don’t know how other people smell or look … in the toilet bowl.
Feces definitely should not reek that it turns one’s stomach. The smell should make you want to flush the toilet – not to run away. And stool should not float, nor should it be excessively sticky, large, or gray-colored.
So, what had happens with our tomcat Otto when we travel? A kind neighbor comes over to feed him. To make it not too complicated for her, we switch to commercial – mostly dry – food. Commercial food contains all kinds of substances unhealthy for a cat, especially wheat and corn products. Predictably, every time our Otto gets extremely stinky on that kind of nutrition.
It takes only a few days and my self-cooked meals that his litter box s ias unobtrusive again as it usually is: His intestines heal, obviously.
What constitutes a healthy bowel? Once a day, at least, one should have a bowel movement. If you don’t have one every day, don’t reach for the laxative. Look instead into what you are eating. Do you eat enough vegetables? Leave out sugar, trans-fats and dairy. And don’t eat what your body tells you hurts it: Stomach pain, heartburn, bloating, cramps, diarrhea, constipation, sores in your mouth – they are not cause for embarrassment but they all are signs that something is wrong with your digestion.
SAD – the Standard American Diet – is not healthy for people’s bowels. And commercial pet food – even the so-called “natural” and “scientific” - are not healthy for your pets’.
P.S. Taking a probiotic does not make up for a lousy diet, but helps reestablishing bowel health. Read More