Understanding the Phases of Liver Detoxification

The liver is one of the most important — yet often overlooked — organs in your body. As your body's primary detoxification organ, it helps keep your body healthy and functioning as it should.

There are two key phases of liver detoxification, each of which requires specific nutrients in order to work effectively. Keep reading to learn more about what your liver does and what you can do to help support it.

What Does Your Liver Do?

Your liver is one of your hardest-working organs. It performs over 500 vital functions that are essential for life and good health. One of its main roles is to filter your blood and break down toxins it is exposed to, byproducts and other harmful substances, such as pollutants, medications, drugs, alcohol and caffeine. This helps detoxify your body and support healthy levels of inflammation to keep your body in a balanced state.

There are two key phases involved in the detoxification process by the liver:

• Phase one involves a number of enzymes that help break down harmful fat-soluble toxins and other products that get stored in your fat cells and send the raw materials to phase two

  • This phase requires the help of key nutrients, herbs and powerful antioxidants. This includes vitamin E, C, B3, B6, B12 and folate, as well as glutathione and milk thistle.

• Phase two mobilizes and transforms the byproducts of phase one into new, water-soluble waste products in a process called conjugation. This waste can then safely be removed from your body via urine, stool, sweat and breath.

  • This phase also requires help from key nutrients such as the most powerful antioxidant glutathione, sulfur based compounds and amino acids, as well as minerals, including zinc and selenium.

In addition to detoxification, some other essential functions of the liver include:

• Producing bile to help digest and absorb fats and carry waste away from the liver

• Producing certain proteins for the blood and proteins that transport fat through the body

• A storage site for vitamins and minerals

• Helps support a strong immune system

• Helping regulate blood clotting

• Helps to balance blood sugar levels by converting stored liver glucose (glycogen) back into glucose for energy when needed

How To Naturally Support the Phases of Liver Detoxification

There are many things that can get in the way of your liver's ability to do its job correctly, such as overexposure to toxins from a poor diet or from the environment. This can lead to many health issues and more serious conditions over time. You can take proactive steps in your daily life to naturally support your liver's ability to detox. Here are some tips to get started:

• Eat cruciferous vegetables. These vegetables provide sulfur-rich compounds that are essential to produce glutathione, the master antioxidant that supports detoxification. Try to incorporate a few servings of cruciferous vegetables at every meal that include broccoli, cabbage, bok choy, cauliflower and brussels sprouts.

• Focus on fiber. Fiber is an indigestible type of carbohydrate that has various health benefits. Fiber supports the antioxidant and enzyme activity required for liver detoxification. It also helps bulk up your stool and promote regular passage of bowel movements, which removes toxins from the body. All plant foods are good sources of dietary fiber, including whole grains, fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts and seeds.

• Stay hydrated. Drinking more water helps cleanse and detoxify the liver. This is because sufficient hydration is required to promote blood circulation and dissolve nutrients. Staying hydrated also helps produce urine, which is another key way the body rids itself of toxins. It is important that you use a water filter or drink mineral water as tap water contains many chemicals and other harmful substances that add to your toxic load.

• Move your Body. Daily movement and incorporating formal physical activity is also key for a healthy liver and body. Exercise can facilitate weight loss or support maintaining a healthy body weight by increasing the breakdown of fatty acids and reducing toxins stored in fat cells. Exercise helps increase the breakdown of Doing physical activity can increase sweat production, promote circulation and increase breathing - all detoxification routes that expel toxins. Like fiber, exercise can also help keep your bowel movements regular, supporting the elimination of toxins via the stool.

• Consider using supportive supplements. Milk thistle and turmeric are two herbs with anti-inflammatory and powerful antioxidant properties they can support the liver and more effective detoxification. Completing a functional medicine liver detox seasonally is also a great way to restore any nutrient deficiencies and effectively remove excess toxicities that accumulate in the body and increase the toxic load on the liver.

• Incorporate self-care activities into your wellness routine.This can include daily dry brushing, coffee enemas and massage. These actions can help by improving circulation, promoting lymph flow and drainage and promoting more efficient elimination of toxins overall.

Your liver is your body's essential built-in detoxification organ. Completing a Functional Medicine detox provides all the nutrients and herbs your body needs to support and upregulate both phases of liver detoxification as well as promote the effective and safe elimination of stored toxins. It is a science-backed powerful weight loss, wellness and anti-aging solution that can rebalance the body at a deeper level by restoring nutrient deficiencies and removing accumulated toxicities. (Blog source)

Want to learn more? Book a complimentary consultation now!

Functional Medicine Lab Testing Explained

While a personalized nutritional plan, restorative sleep and supportive supplementation are three core foundations that go a long way to support our health, there is something even more powerful at your disposal: Functional Medicine Testing. This is a tool that gives you the deepest insight into your individual health data. Real-time, accurate information about what is going on inside your body holds the key to helping identify the underlying root cause behind any symptoms or health conditions you may be experiencing.

There is Always a Reason

When you experience any sign or symptom, it is not your body faltering, but rather a sign it needs additional support. Functional Medicine testing helps to identify nutritional deficiencies and accumulated toxicities in your body that are the reason you might not be feeling well. Once you understand these imbalances, you can then replenish any deficiencies and reduce toxicities through personalized diet and lifestyle adjustments to restore balance and embark on your path to wellness.

The Consideration With Most Laboratory Work

Anyone who has visited a doctor's office has probably been subject to lab tests at one time or another. Running your annual blood work is recommended, or other one-off tests may have been completed based on your current health concerns. But once the results were in, there's a good chance you didn't get to look at the raw data. Instead, your doctor probably gave you their interpretation of the data, with proposed treatment options – often in the form of pharmaceutical medication. There may not be anything inherently wrong with this, especially in the short term. Still, if you continue to experience symptoms after the prescribed recommendations, or where medication is often used to mask symptoms given to your diagnosis, you could be missing out on the invaluable piece you need on what the root cause of your symptoms are and how you can get well -- and that is possible through Functional Medicine lab testing.

Blood testing only looks at the blood at a specific time, and while there are certain blood markers that do hold valuable information about your health, and do form part of functional medicine testing – it is only one small part. Functional medicine testing also includes testing the urine, saliva, and hair samples that take your health data to a whole new level. Blood is a homeostatic fluid that always tries to maintain balance in the body and the range that may suggest "dis-ease" can be far off the optimal range you should try to maintain for your body to function at its best, so you feel your best.

The "Don't Guess, Test" Approach

Functional medicine testing enables you to take an in-depth look at any deficiencies in vitamins and minerals levels, hormone imbalances, gut and digestive function, how your body is coping (or not coping) with stress, overall metabolism and mood. It also identifies accumulated toxicities and when you have all of this information at your disposal, it can clearly outline the underlying reason why you may be suffering from brain fog and low mood, have difficulty losing weight, experience extreme tiredness, headaches, skin issues, digestive upset, reproductive imbalances like menstrual irregularity or low libido and any other health issue.

Take Control of Your Health

Disease is defined as a collection of symptoms and based on a diagnosis you are often given a treatment plan to mask the symptoms instead of identifying the root cause of why this has happened to begin with. At EquiLife, we have seen over and over again how quickly our clients' lives can turn around once they have completed the appropriate Functional Medicine lab testing. When you understand how your body has become imbalanced in the first place, you can then learn what you need to do to restore balance and get well. This is why Functional Medicine lab testing is one of the most popular and effective services we offer – right from the comfort of your own home.

Every test comes with a one-on-one coaching call with one of our certified health practitioners so that you can fully understand your lab results and armed with this data, begin to implement a comprehensive individualized wellness plan that best supports you. After following the recommendations, you have your initial base point and can do follow-up tests that assess your progress and any further adjustments that may be needed.

And if you aren't sure where to start, we have you covered and offer a Free Lab Selection call where you can explain your primary health issue and have the expertise of one of our certified coaches to guide you in the right direction. After your call, you will get the total value back as a credit toward the purchase of any lab or protocol recommended because our aim is for you to take back the control of your health, with the information you need to rebalance your body and live longer, stronger for life.

If you are ready to take your health to the next level – running the Big 5 lab tests will give you the most comprehensive look at your overall health and wellness. You can learn more about why using at-home lab tests to uncover your hidden health issues is so powerful from Dr. Cabral in this podcast. (Blog source)

Ready to learn more? Schedule a complimentary consultation here and we can discuss which lab is right for you!