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Pharmacy Links

REDUCING CHOLESTEROL: IMPROVE YOUR LIVER FUNCTION

23rd April 2009

Approximately 80 percent of the cholesterol in your body was made in your liver, so it makes sense to take good care of it. If your liver is healthy, you should have a healthy cholesterol level. The amount of cholesterol we consume in our diet has very little effect on our blood cholesterol. The liver primarily converts excess calories from carbohydrates and sugar into cholesterol and triglycerides. Therefore, an excess of sugar and carbohydrate in the diet is one of the most common reasons why people develop a fatty liver. Trans fats are also responsible for the development of fatty liver disease; these are unnatural, twisted fats that our liver doesn’t know what to do with. They can end up clogging your liver with unhealthy fat.

In modern times fatty liver disease has become extremely common, with approximately 20 percent of the population affected. You can find out if you have a fatty liver through the use of a liver ultrasound, a blood test called a liver function test, and just by observing if you carry excess weight on your abdominal area, especially the upper abdomen. If you need more specific information about fatty liver disease and how to reverse it, please see the book “The Liver Cleansing Diet”.

The liver is the cleanser and filter of the bloodstream; if you were to look at it under a microscope it really is built like a sieve. Your liver is responsible for keeping your bloodstream as clean as possible. Every chemical and toxin you are exposed to ultimately ends up in your liver. Whether it was something you inhaled, rubbed on to your skin, ate, or toxins that were generated in your own body; each of these are taken to your liver for detoxification. The liver attempts to change these toxins into a water-soluble form so that they can be excreted in watery fluids like the bile, urine, perspiration, and through the breath.

If you have a fatty liver, you surely have an excess of toxins stored there. Most toxic substances in our body are fat soluble, and an excess of fatty tissue in the liver will mean an excess of toxins. Many people with fatty liver disease have raised liver enzymes, this means that there is excessive inflammation in their liver, and as a consequence liver cells are being damaged. These inflammatory chemicals and toxins will spill out into the bloodstream and place a great deal of stress on the immune system. Remember that it is the liver that produces C-reactive protein when there is an excess of inflammation in the body; C-reactive protein is one of the biggest risk factors for heart disease we know of.