Herbs that love your liver: enhance the health of this vital organ

Vegetarian Times, August, 1996 by Kathi Keville

Chances are, you don't give much thought to your liver. Admittedly, it's an easy organ to ignore--it doesn't grumble like an empty stomach or skip a beat like a heart in love.

But just because your liver goes about its business quietly doesn't mean you should take it for granted. This amazingly complex organ affects virtually every physiological process, either directly or indirectly. If your liver isn't working up to par, it'll likely affect other aspects of your health.

The liver is the body's primary antipollution organ, in charge of removing potential toxins from the bloodstream; it filters more than a liter of blood per minute. In today's world, the liver receives more than its share of insults, from things like auto exhaust, secondhand smoke, pesticides, heavy metals, industrial solvents and household cleaners, not to mention over-the-counter and prescription medications, food additives and various bacteria.

If you want to improve your digestion, look to supporting your liver, which also is the most important organ of metabolism. It's responsible for metabolizing fats, carbohydrates, proteins and many vitamins, most notably those that are fat soluble, like A and D. Among the liver's other critical functions are regulating blood sugar levels, deactivating hormones so their levels aren't too high, and producing bile, a critical liquid that breaks down fats and carries away waste products.

As if all this doesn't keep your liver busy enough, it also supplies the immune system with antibodies and produces blood-clotting factors and globin, a constituent of hemoglobin, the pigment in blood that carries oxygen to all the body's cells.

One problem with liver impairment is that it's easy to overlook. After all, how many people think their liver may be involved when they experience headaches, fatigue, irritability, aches and pains, indigestion, chronic constipation, premenstrual syndrome or hormonal imbalances? Even many skin conditions may be affected by the liver; ask any herbalist what she uses to treat eczema, psoriasis or rashes, and she'll likely mention some herbs that strengthen the liver.

While mainstream medicine acknowledges that the liver is involved with most of the aforementioned conditions (except for headaches and skin conditions, in which the connection is more debatable), most of its practitioners are unlikely to even consider treating the liver in the absence of a specific liver disease. Practitioners of natural medicine, on the other hand, will generally address the liver in their first line of treatment for a wide variety of ailments.

The liver has an amazing ability to restore itself, and herbs can play an important role in keeping the liver healthy. Most of the liver-loving herbs that follow have been studied in relation to disease, such as cirrhosis or hepatitis. Although these herbs can have remarkable effects on serious liver conditions, most are very gentle, and even a basically healthy person can benefit from using them to promote proper digestion and enhance blood detoxification.

Follow dosage directions given on the herb labels. As a general guideline, I,d suggest that healthy people take liver herbs for a few days each month. You can take the herbs that follow either alone or in combination. Many combinations specifically for the liver are available from natural food stores.

I would also recommend taking liver herbs for a few days any time your life includes factors that stress the liver, for example, eating a lot of rich foods, drinking more than a moderate amount of alcohol or taking any pharmaceutical medications, especially sleeping pills. If you have a chronic liver disease, you can take any of the following herbs until the problem clears up. They all are nontoxic and can be taken indefinitely with no ill effects; however, I've found that taking a break for three or four days a month seems to enhance the herbs, effectiveness for the continual user.

A WOUNDED LIVER'S BEST FRIEND

The most impressive liver herb is the seed of milk thistle (Silybum marianum), a prickly weed found throughout much of the world. Hundreds of studies have been published on milk thistle seeds, demonstrating that this herb is effective at repairing damage from alcohol; drugs, including illicit, prescription and over-the-counter; chronic hepatitis; and exposure to toxins.

A flavonoid complex called silymarin is responsible for milk thistle seeds, action and has proven to be one of the most potent liver-protecting substances known. (Flavonoids are compounds that include many common pigments.) For example, in the 1970s, one researcher gave silymarin to 60 people who had developed severe liver poisoning from accidentally eating wild Amanita mushrooms. The death rate from ingesting these mushrooms is typically between 30 percent and 40 percent, yet every single subject survived.

Every year dozens of people in the United States accidentally eat poisonous mushrooms. Ironically, while I was writing this article, a family in California made news when they tossed some Amanita mushrooms into their spaghetti sauce. The mother and two sons were hospitalized with liver damage for several days, and the 1 3-year-old daughter required a liver transplant.