Between Christmas and New Year we often spend just about every second day drinking and neglecting our health a little. While there’s certainly no need to feel guilty over a little indulgence – it’s just once a year after all – it is important to understand why we should start swapping the champagne for water to give our liver a break.
We spoke to Senior Naturopathic Consultant at Herron Natural Healthcare Bob Wootton ND about how alcohol affects our liver and what we can do to help it.
RESCU: How does alcohol affect our liver?
Bob Wootton: One of the liver’s roles is help process alcohol. Small amounts of alcohol are not usually an issue for most people however where there is too much to process (either through the volume or speed it reached the liver) the body can’t cope and this can lead to a condition know as fatty liver and liver cells can be damaged.
Alcohol is metabolised by the liver; in doing so an enzyme is produced that converts the alcohol into acetaldehyde. This chemical can then be toxic to the body. With a greater level of alcohol producing more acetaldehyde, ridding the body of this toxin can become problematic
RESCU: What are the repercussions of a damaged liver? Why should we be concerned?
Bob Wootton: We need to be very careful with our livers! The liver is a very complex multi tasking major organ that is necessary for life. Amongst the liver’s key functions are the removal of toxins and the processing of nutrients from our diet. There are 3 types of alcohol induced liver damage: fatty liver , alcoholic hepatitis and alcoholic cirrhisis. Whist early stages of these liver disease can have minor symptoms, they can be live threatening in advanced stages and early care and treatment should be consider
RESCU: How can we protect our liver with our diet?
Bob Wootton: We can help protect the liver with a sensible balanced diet that provides only small qualities of fats and refined sugars/alcohol to process at a time.
Including plenty of green leafy vegetables is also helpful as are bitter and asset liver function.
Keeping up with plenty of water is also important, particularly when drinking alcohol as the alcohol acts as a diuretic.
Varying the diet to not alway rely of red meats can also be helpful.
In summary, the liver is an amazing organ that can generally cope with fluctuations in our diet, lifestyle and environmental conditionals etc but when asked to work too hard for too long, it can fail to complete its roles with serious health implications.
RESCU: What supplements can we take to assist the liver?
Bob Wootton: The key supplement consideration to assist the liver would be the herb – milk thistle.
Herron Liver Detox is a high potency formulation using Milk Thistle replicated to the same dosage used in successful clinical trials to detoxify, protect and regenerate cells of the liver. It can also assist in the reduction of the risk of damage brought about by environmental toxins, such as drugs and alcohol.
The body uses up a considerable amount of nutrients when processing alcohol. The B group vitamins in particular can play a vital role in helping to support liver function.
Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) for example is a compulsory supplement in the treatment of alcoholism and, working with the other B group vitamins in the production of energy, it can play a vital role in assisting the liver.
As excess coffee can also place a strain on the liver, replacing 1 or 2 cups with dandelion coffee can be a useful consideration. Dandelion root is another herb with a very long history of use in assisting liver function. As the liver’s roles are so wide, identifying the supplements, diet and lifestyle advice on an individual by individual’s basis is something best assisted by your healthcare professional.
