The LIVER

I have wanted to do a post on this for a long time, but the information is so much, and condensing it is a challenge. Therefore, there may be some good follow up articles on this, as well as many more updates on this alone. I hear you ask what is it? The LIVER! I didn't know much about how my body worked (the basics from high school health class) and to be honest didn't really care. As I became more enlightend about my health, my desire to know how my body worked grew. The first organ that I learned more about was the liver, and to date it is still my favorite. It helped encourage me to change me diet, upon learning that I really am what I eat. I am sure that at another time in my life I would have recieved this information and brushed it off with an, that will never happen to me attitude. Now I am grateful for the information and the knowledge that I AM in control of what happens to my body, the illnesses, the diesease, and complications that may arise are a direct result of my choices. Let's begin:
What is the Liver? The liver is the largest internal organ in the human body and is present in vertebrates and some other animals. The liver is necessary for survival; a human can only last up to 24 hours without liver function. The adult human liver normally weighs between 1.4 - 1.6 kilograms (3.1 - 3.5 pounds),[4] and it is a soft, pinkish-brown, triangular organ. Averaging about the size of an American football in adults, it is both the largest internal organ and the largest gland in the human body. It is located on the right side of the upper abdomen below the diaphragm anatomy. The liver lies to the right of the stomach and overlies the gallbladder. wikipedia.org/liver

What does my liver do? Your liver acts as a processing plant. It receives everything that you put into your mouth and that ends up in your blood stream, does its best to sort out useful nutrients and harmful substances, and then packages these nutrients and harmful substances to be delivered to your cells and eliminated from your body, respectively. chetday.com/healthyliver The liver is responsible for regulating most chemical levels in the blood. When you swallow a pill, the medication typically travels via the bloodstream from your stomach to your liver. There, one or more types of liver enzyme process the drug, breaking it down into forms that are easier for the rest of the body to use. Some of the drug travels on through your bloodstream; the rest is tagged as poisonous and filtered out.
washingtonpost.com

How does what I consume affect my liver? Let's take medication for an example. How often do you hear on the medication commercials on tv that if you have liver failure to not take the medication and that you will need to have you blood tested so your doctor can monitor you liver function? Okay you might not hear that part but because I am sensitive to it I hear it! Danny had what we thought was some type of fungus growing under his big toenail for a really long time, he went to the doctor (this was about 7 years ago) and was given a prescription for Lamisil. The doctor said to take it but after 2 weeks come back for blood work to check your liver function. Blindly Danny complied. After 2 weeks he got the blood work done and the doctor advised him to stop taking the medication. A few thoughts on this: I am grateful the doctor knew enough to advise the bloodwork, and I grateful that Danny complied and didn't just keep taking the drup, I wish we had known more to have helped Danny avoid taking the liver damaging medicine in the first place. After a year in Chiropractic School Danny was able to diagnos his condition on his own. Psoriasis. The medication given by the doctor was for this, but there was never any communication to that point. The medication doesn't "cure" the condition it masks the symptoms, and can cause liver damage. Yes there are natural way to help psoriasis, a healthy immune system and body is the number one way. Upon changing our lifestyles Danny's condition has improved considerably and his liver is better for it too!

The liver is the gateway to the body and in this chemical age its detoxification systems are easily overloaded. Thousands of chemicals are added to food and over 700 have been identified in drinking water. Plants are sprayed with toxic chemicals, animals are injected with potent hormones and antibiotics and a significant amount of our food is genetically engineered, processed, refined, frozen and cooked. All this can lead to destruction of delicate vitamins and minerals, which are needed for the detoxification pathways in the liver. The liver must try to cope with every toxic chemical in our environment, as well as damaged fats that are present in processed and fried foods.liverdoctor.com

If you are taking medication I would hope that you would reevaluate the necesity of the drug. Can a change in lifestyle eliminate the need? Is it really necassary? Find out the complications is may cause and insist on bloodwork being done by your practitioner. Furthermore, if you must continue the medication take extra care as to what else you consume lessening the burden on your AWESOME liver!

I know the following list is a long one, but double check if for youself and your loved ones. (it hasn't been updated since 2003 so I can only imagine the number of drugs that it is missing of special note the new cholesterol lowering drugs can be highly dangerous for you liver, and from what I have read don't really work!click for more on statins)

This list is just a general guideline. Many drugs affect the liver to one degree or another and we can't list all of them here; new drugs are always being approved for general use. Read the accompanying literature with your prescriptions and always consult with your doctor or pharmacist about any new medication if you have liver disease! Click to go to the list