Is your liver taking a beating? Are you an artist, painter or printer, or do you work in a dry cleaning establishment or photocopy shop? If so, you’re exposed to liver-damaging volatile organic solvents daily. Other types of jobs involve different unavoidable and heavy toxic exposures. Bicycle commuting in traffic exposes you to an unhealthy dose of air pollutants.
Or do you have a liver disease like hepatitis, cirrhosis, alcohol or drug-induced liver disease, or elevated liver enzymes? (a test your doctor can give you to see if your liver is breaking down)
Liver damage/disease are no fun. Fatigue, digestive problems, allergies and frequent colds, flu and other infections; rashes; various aches, pains and other discomforts; mood swings and an inability to deal with stress are just some of the unpleasant consequences of liver overload and disease.
Liver Care is a carefully formulated blend of synergistic nutrients in their purest, most bioavailable forms, and includes the liver heavy weights N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine (NAC), Milk Thistle and Dandelion Root.
NAC raises levels of glutathione in your body.
The body’s master antioxidant and most important detoxifier, glutathione is made inside every cell, but it plays an especially important role in the liver, where it detoxifies a wide range of toxins, including drugs, environmental pollutants, heavy metals, and pesticides and also protects the liver itself from free radical damage. Given a heavy toxic load, glutathione can easily become depleted, and low glutathione levels aren’t just bad for the liver, they’re linked with just about every chronic disease.
Glutathione is composed of three amino acids: glycine, glutamine, and cysteine. Glycine and glutamine are readily available from the diet, while cysteine isn’t, so one of the best ways to raise depleted glutathione levels in your body is by supplementing with NAC.
Milk Thistle is an herb that’s been used for centuries to support and heal the liver. Certain compounds, collectively called silymarin, are its active ingredients, and good milk thistle supplements are standardized to contain 70-80% silymarin. Silymarin protects and regenerates the liver in three ways:
- Silybin in silymarin binds to the outside of liver cells and protects them from incoming toxins. Intravenous silybin has saved the life and livers of more than 2,000 patients after ingesting poisonous mushrooms, and it works the same way with thousands of other toxins.
- The hard working liver generates lots of free radicals, which could easily destroy it without significant antioxidant protection. Silymarin is a powerhouse antioxidant itself and also raises levels of glutathione in liver cells by more than 35% in healthy subjects.
- Silymarin’s ability to regenerate damaged liver cells is key to its ability to heal many forms of the chronic liver disease. It does this by increasing protein synthesis in the liver cells.
Dandelion Root is another antioxidant herb with a time-honored tradition of use as a tonic that promotes detoxification, reduces liver congestion, and restores and protects the liver. It has diuretic properties.
Maybe your liver could use some extra love. If so, give it the care it wants: Liver Care