HOW DO I DETOX MY LIVER? (AND DO I EVEN NEED TO?!)

Are you constantly tired, struggling with weight gain, or dealing with unpredictable mood swings (the rage!)? These common perimenopause symptoms might have you pointing the finger of blame at your female hormones, but the key to transforming your health could be something unexpected and not often thought about — your liver.

THE LIVER: YOUR BODY’S MULTI-TASKING POWERHOUSE

Your liver is a crucial organ that performs hundreds of essential tasks to keep your body running smoothly. Let's explore some of its primary functions:

1. Detoxification: The liver acts as the body’s primary detox centre. It filters out toxins from everything you consume — food, drinks, medications, and even the air you breathe. These toxins are broken down and prepared for elimination.
2. Hormone Regulation: It plays a crucial role in metabolizing hormones, including estrogen. By processing and breaking down excess hormones, the liver helps maintain hormonal balance, which is especially important during perimenopause.
3. Metabolism: The liver is central to your metabolism. It converts nutrients from your diet into essential blood components, stores vitamins and minerals, and manages the balance of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates in your body.
4. Bile Production: It produces bile, a substance that helps digest fats and absorb fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K). Bile is also essential for removing waste products from the liver, and helping to manage our cholesterol levels.
5. Blood Sugar Regulation: The liver helps maintain stable blood sugar levels by storing excess glucose as glycogen and releasing it when your body needs energy.
6. Storage: It stores vital nutrients such as iron, glycogen, and vitamins (A, D, B12). This storage function ensures your body has a reserve of essential nutrients to draw upon ‘in case of emergency’.
7. Blood Filtration: The liver filters and removes old or damaged blood cells, along with toxins and waste products from the blood.
8. Immune Function: It plays a role in your immune system by producing immune factors and removing bacteria from the bloodstream.

LIVER DETOX: HOW YOUR LIVER MANAGES HORMONES AND HEALTH

PHASE 1 DETOXIFICATION:

This is the liver's first line of defense against toxins. Liver enzymes work to modify toxins, by breaking down fat-soluble toxins into intermediate forms that are water soluble. Some ‘metabolites’ may be eliminated in your urine at this point. The rest are prepared for further metabolism by the liver, to make them able to be eliminated. Unfortunately, some of these intermediary molecules and the by-products of their metabolism, can also create free radicals and reactive oxygen species — unstable molecules - that can cause oxidative stress (damage) to our cells, if we don’t have enough anti-oxidants available to oppose them.

In short, all toxins go through Phase 1 for initial processing - some can then be eliminated via urine, while others need more processing in phase 2.

PHASE 2 DETOXIFICATION:

Once toxins are modified in Phase 1, Phase 2 kicks in to neutralise these intermediate, reactive molecules. This phase involves six different ‘conjugation’ pathways. Conjugation means adding water-soluble side groups to the toxins, enhancing their ability to be eliminated. Toxins will go through one of the pathways, so that they have a molecule attached to it, so it is water-soluble and can be excreted from the body through urine, skin, bile and bowel motions.

These pathways include:

1. Glutathione Conjugation: Uses the antioxidant glutathione to neutralize toxins, commonly detoxifying heavy metals, pesticides, and alcohol by-products.
2. Sulfation: Adds a sulfate group to toxins, making them easier to excrete. Effective in detoxifying hormones like estrogen, as well as various drugs and food additives.
3. Glucuronidation: Attaches glucuronic acid to toxins, increasing their solubility. Processes compounds such as bilirubin, steroids, and some pharmaceuticals.
4. Amino Acid Conjugation: Uses amino acids like glycine and taurine to detoxify substances, often involved in the detoxification of bile acids, phenols, and benzoates.
5. Acetylation: Adds an acetyl group to toxins for neutralisation, important for the metabolism of sulfonamides, caffeine, and certain drugs.
6. Methylation: Adds a methyl group to toxins, aiding in their breakdown and removal, detoxifying neurotransmitters, histamine, and some hormones.

Balance between the two phases is crucial for preventing the buildup of harmful substances. That is, you don’t want one going faster than the other.

DO YOU NEED A LIVER DETOX PRODUCT TO HELP YOUR LIVER DO IT’S JOB?

The idea of doing a detox to cleanse your liver is a popular one, but is it really necessary?

Your liver is already a state-of-the-art detox lab, designed to handle toxins every single day. However, when our modern lifestyles overload the liver with toxins, it can lead to fatty liver disease and other health issues.

Many detox products on the market can actually do more harm than good by speeding up Phase 1 of liver detoxification without adequately supporting Phase 2. This imbalance can flood your bloodstream with reactive oxygen species (ROS) and other damaging compounds, making you feel worse instead of better.

Apply quote formatting; Instead of a quick fix detox, focus on reducing the load on your liver and supporting your body's natural elimination pathways every day.

COMMON LIVER OVERLOADERS TO WATCH OUT FOR

ALCOHOL INTAKE:

Alcohol is one of the most well-known liver stressors. Your liver prioritises breaking down alcohol over other functions, including hormone production and metabolism. Additionally, alcohol acts like sugar in your body, which can exacerbate liver stress, insulin resistance, and fat accumulation. Reducing alcohol consumption or opting for alcohol-free days can significantly ease the burden on your liver.

CAFFEINE AND ENERGY DRINKS:

While a morning coffee can be fine, excessive caffeine and energy drinks can overwork the liver. These drinks often contain high levels of sugar and artificial additives, adding to the liver's workload. Caffeine is processed by the liver, and excessive amounts can lead to increased oxidative stress.

STRESS:

Chronic stress releases hormones like cortisol, which can interfere with liver function by impacting blood sugar and insulin levels and increasing the liver’s detoxification load. Managing stress and building your stress resilience through various techniques can help alleviate this burden on your liver.

POOR NUTRITION AND EATING HABITS:

Diets high in processed foods, sugars—especially fructose and sucrose—and unhealthy fats can lead to liver inflammation and fatty liver disease.

ENVIRONMENTAL TOXINS:

Everyday exposure to pollutants, pesticides, and chemicals in household and personal care products can add to your liver's workload. For more info on these ‘endocrine-disrupting’ chemicals, please do check out my blog and podcast episode. These chemicals impact the liver but also heavily impact your hormone balance, and can really make your perimenopause symptoms so much worse.

SMOKING AND VAPING:

Smoking and vaping introduce so many chemicals, heavy metals, and other toxins that the liver must process, leading to increased oxidative stress and damage. The best thing you can do is start cutting down right now, and aim to quit ASAP. If you’re breathing in secondhand smoke/vape, it’s even worse than smoking it, so please remove yourself from the area, or ask the smoker/vaper to stop or move away instead.

INFECTION AND ILLNESS:

Viral infections like hepatitis, Epstein-Barr, and COVID can directly damage liver cells, impairing its function. Boosting your immune system with a healthy diet and regular exercise can help protect your liver.

PRESCRIPTION AND OVER-THE-COUNTER MEDICATIONS:

Many medications are processed by the liver, and long-term use can lead to liver damage. Discussing medication use with your healthcare provider and exploring natural alternatives where possible can be beneficial.

MINERAL DEFICIENT SOIL:

Modern agricultural practices can lead to nutrient-poor soil, affecting the quality of our food. Choosing organic and locally-sourced produce, or growing your own (in optimised soil) can help ensure you're getting the nutrients necessary for liver health.

POOR GUT AND MICROBIOME HEALTH:

An imbalanced microbiome can create toxic by-products that the liver must process. Ensuring a healthy gut through diet and probiotics can reduce the liver's workload.

HOW TO SUPPORT YOUR LIVER NATURALLY

Your liver needs a large number of nutrients to be able to do all of its jobs well. The conjugation pathways require some very specific amino acids, and nutrients to do their work. When you are low in these nutrients, it can slow your phase 2 detoxification, leading to a backup of toxic metabolites causing more oxidative stress and damage to your cells and liver. You don’t want this, because when your liver cells get damaged, although they can be regenerated, eventually the cells can not be regrown, and instead fat fills the void in your liver. This is how you get fatty liver, and that leads to deranged fat metabolism, leading to cholesterol, blood glucose, insulin and hormone issues.

To support your liver’s detoxification processes, incorporate the following nutrient-rich foods, drinks, and lifestyle changes and you’ll be feeling like your liver’s had a Spring clean!

LIVER-LOVING FOODS TO INCLUDE

• Leafy Greens and Vegetables: Spinach, kale, Swiss chard, cauliflower, asparagus, cabbage, bell peppers, beets, broccoli, and broccoli sprouts.
• Fruits: Oranges, lemons, grapefruits, kiwi, berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries), and avocado.
• Nuts and Seeds: Almonds, walnuts, Brazil nuts, cashews, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, pecans, and hazelnuts.
• Legumes and Grains: Lentils, chickpeas, beans (kidney, navy, black), brown rice, oats, barley, and quinoa.
• Animal Products: Meat, poultry, fish, seafood, dairy, and eggs.
• Other Foods: Bone broth, dark chocolate (high cocoa content), seaweed, and tea (green tea, black tea).

HYDRATION

Stay well-hydrated to support detoxification processes.

SLEEP

Ensure sufficient opportunity to sleep, to support your liver in its regeneration, repair, and self-cleansing functions. Your liver is busiest around 1-3 am. Eating your dinner early — before 8 pm — helps your liver focus on its cleansing functions.

Better liver health can make a world of difference in how you feel every day, especially in perimenopause. By reducing the external toxin load on your liver, consistently, you can support your liver to do what it does best - support and optimise your hormones, nutrients, blood sugar levels, and keep you feeling amazing.

By reducing the load on your liver and supporting its natural functions, you can significantly improve both how you feel, and how you move through perimenopause.

If you want to take control of your health during perimenopause, but there’s one big problem: you’re confused by all the information, and you’re exhausted just thinking about how to go about implementing the changes in your busy life. Don’t worry, I’ve got your back. I know what it’s like to have so much information flooding in, that you feel frozen with how to actually implement any of it, let alone all of it.

My new 4-week program, PerimenoGO is designed for overwhelmed women like you. It not only teaches you how to eat to support and nourish your body, including your liver, but it gives you the tools and skills to TAKE ACTION and implement what you learn. PerimenoGO offers structured guidance, specific instruction, and family-friendly meal plans, along with a supportive community to make it super easy for you to implement what you need to, to start feeling amazing in your body and mind again!

Learn more and join the waitlist today to get started on your journey to optimise your health, lose that stubborn hormonal weight gain, and beat the perimenopause symptoms, naturally.