A little while ago I wrote an article about how to help your liver heal. This article is a continuation of it. While the article was written to focus on helping your liver heal, many of you have asked for more general topics that could be used for other ailments as well.
Overview
The first thing to say about this is that it’s not going to work: you do not have the ability to heal your liver. This isn’t a joke; you cannot use this method on yourself (i.e., ingesting raw liver). It’s only useful in research, and even then you can only hope to get something like 1% response rate.
That being said, it may help some people who don’t want or need treatment from traditional medicine (or who are sick of hearing that stuff). In addition, if you are just curious about whether this works or not, it may be interesting for you as well.
The liver is a complex organ with many layers and mechanisms which can fail without obvious causes. Hence, it needs to be looked at from all angles in order to understand why one part of it might be faulty, while another one could remain functioning perfectly (for a long time) despite being obstructed.
Functions of liver on human body
Your liver does very important things – some better than others – but in most cases it deals with the metabolism of fats and carbohydrates by processing them into bile (which gets stored in the gallbladder) before they can cause problems.
If you have to have a liver transplant or are waiting for an operation because you have cirrhosis (a serious form of liver disease) or hepatitis (a viral infection), your liver will be damaged at least temporarily by all this fat metabolism (but not necessarily irreparably) and you will need to take special care to ensure that your body won’t reject the transplant as a result of this damage.
If you don’t drink enough water, then all sorts of problems will start happening down there:
- dehydration triggers inflammation, which causes more damage
- if inflammation goes unchecked then bacteria can get into the bloodstream and cause infections
- if infection happens then the liver will start rejecting the donated organ as a result
- if rejection happens then there may be serious long-term consequences such as scarring and cirrhosis
- even worse could happen if infections happen in other parts of the body where you don’t normally get these infections (like your lungs)
So drinking lots of water is going to help keep your organs healthy and also keep any infections from spreading!
In layman’s terms:
The liver cannot work well if its ducts are blocked or if it is unable to function properly (in other words, if your liver has become damaged). The problems occur because their normal functions are impaired by something else (for example, a tumor) or by something which causes an imbalance between the functions of these ducts (for example, stress or diabetes).
Let’s look at some simple examples:
A protein called CYP2C19 produces compounds which are either broken down by the enzyme catalase or oxidized by its products peroxidase. If your liver cannot effectively break down these compounds then there will be excessive amounts of them circulating in its blood stream as waste products called “free radicals”.
Free radicals are present in all living organisms and so their presence is generally regarded as harmful for us humans because they can damage our cells; however their presence can also be used as a way of diagnosing diseases like cancer or diabetes where abnormal levels of free radicals are found in blood samples taken from people with those conditions.
In order for any part of the body to function optimally it needs proper amounts of free radicals – so if your liver cannot break down these compounds then you will suffer from clinical symptoms associated with free radical overload disorders like cirrhosis – which are usually fatal.
Most people do not know that they have any form of cirrhosis but many don’t realize that their liver problems stem from excessive levels of free radicals circulating in their blood stream because they don’t experience any symptoms during times when these levels are acceptable (e.g., when doing normal things like eating).
How liver disease develops
What is liver disease?
Liver disease is a group of diseases that affect the blood and blood vessels, which can lead to many complications. It can be either viral or bacterial. Viruses cause viral hepatitis and hepatitis B, while bacteria damage the blood and blood vessels.
Bacterial liver disease is often caused by toxins produced by bacteria. The most common cause of bacterial infection is hepatitis C, which affects about 0.1-0.2% of the population worldwide. In addition, it may also be caused by alcohol abuse or smoking.
When it is caused by viruses, it is called viral hepatitis. There are three types:
- The primary type is an acute illness caused by a virus typically without symptoms that goes away within a few days without treatment;
- The secondary type causes an inflammation of the liver called non-alcoholic fatty liver or NAFLD (which occurs when both fat and alcohol are consumed);
- The tertiary type occurs when a virus infects the liver but does not cause inflammation (because it cannot get into enough cells to function).
Liver cirrhosis can occur when other organs are damaged such as in cancer or congenital disorders like bone marrow failure, multiple sclerosis or diabetes mellitus as well as following surgery for cancerous tumors such as colon cancer itself (acute), rectal cancer if it comes from there, and breast cancer if it comes from elsewhere in the body (chronic).
Cirrhosis can also result from cirrhosis from alcoholism if the problem was not directly caused by alcohol abuse but was due to its influence on metabolism (particularly in women with female hormones like estrogen) or through exposure to alcohol through pregnancy during fetal development.
Once cirrhosis develops, there are two main ways in which we may treat it:
- through surgery to remove part of the liver such as removal of a part called a bile duct cutting off its flow into the intestines;
- through chemotherapy or radiation therapy to kill off any remaining cells; and
- possibly through adjuvant pharmacotherapy aimed at improving one’s quality of life.
Signs and symptoms of liver disease
Although liver disease is one of the most common types of chronic illness, it often goes undiagnosed for decades or even lifetimes. You see many patients with liver disease — and it is a very common problem in the West.
Liver disease is a complex condition that can be difficult to diagnose. It can look like everything from hepatitis A to hepatitis B to viral hepatitis to cirrhosis. Most cases are usually diagnosed because of symptoms, but often there is not enough evidence to confirm the diagnosis.
To help detect liver disease early and prevent further complications, doctors often use blood tests or ultrasound scans on an annual basis. But doctors also rely on clinical signs and symptoms that are more indicative of the health of your liver, such as fatigue and weight loss, which can make it harder to detect if you have liver disease early on.
While some people will start showing signs of liver disease in their 40s or 50s, others may never get sick at all until they’re 70 or 80 years old — so it’s important that you pay attention when you notice changes in yourself — even if you’ve been told you don’t have any signs or symptoms at all! Changes in your body are just as important for detecting cancer as for detecting heart failure or kidney failure (because these changes often occur together).
Diagnosing liver disease
Although liver disease is a leading cause of death from cancer, it’s one of the most under-diagnosed. Liver disease is often misdiagnosed, with false negatives frequently becoming true positives. Having the right information at your fingertips can help you avoid these errors.
To receive a diagnosis of liver disease, you need to have four things:
- A clear history and appropriate tests to monitor your condition
- A good understanding of your condition
- Evidence to support what you’re saying
- An understanding of how the body responds to medications and other treatments.
How to Treat a liver disease?
The procedure was done in a hospital, and there was an entire ward for patients waiting. Two of the first things that came to mind: how disgusting it must be to wake up in bed and have someone come to you with a needle and how sweet it would be to have someone come and chill you with a glass of wine while they start the process. I’m sure most people would have had the same thoughts, even if the recipient wasn’t doing anything so unpleasant. Most of us don’t experience it, but we do experience something similar every day.
The process itself doesn’t seem that bad, but what happens after is very different. And that is why we are talking about liver disease — because it is one of those things that we can all help our bodies with, if only we could understand why it happens and what we can do about it. We can start treating patients with liver disease today, and sooner than later they will see positive results — whether they are on dialysis or not!
As I said earlier: We can help our bodies heal from illnesses such as:
- Thyroiditis – related conditions such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (a condition where the thyroid gland is overactive) or Graves’ disease (a condition where the thyroid gland produces too much thyroid hormone).
- Angina – related causes include atheroma (thickening of artery wall), atherosclerosis (the buildup of fat in an artery wall), cardiac arrhythmias (irregular heartbeats), myocardial infarction (heart attack).
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – this includes asthma and COPD, where there is significant airway obstruction due to either scarring or inflammation. A heart attack in COPD can be triggered by chronic inflammation from COPD-related infection like influenza or pneumonia; consequently, lung function tests should be done every few months while you are being treated for COPD-related infection or inflammation.
- Diabetes mellitus –– this includes diabetes with hypoglycemia which involves low blood sugar levels caused by lack of insulin producing cells in the pancreas; diabetes mellitus without hypoglycemia
How to prevent a liver disease?
Liver disease is a serious issue. It is not just the opposite of what most people think — it is an increasingly common cause of death. The good news is that you do have a choice about what you eat and how much you drink, so for most people, the chances of getting liver damage are low.
The bad news is that the risk increases with your cholesterol level, so if your cholesterol level is high or getting high, you should be very careful about what you eat and drink.
Here’s another way to look at this: some people have a “liver”, where their liver does not function properly (you can think of it as a chronic inflammation). Others have their “liver”, where their liver works well but there are other problems which prevent it from working well (they don’t know they have it, but they do).
The key difference here is that while some people who have either problem might be able to keep their cholesterol at a healthy level if they change their diet and lifestyle (by exercising and eating healthier and avoiding smoking), others will likely need to undergo heart-liver transplants.
What’s more important: drinking lots of water or exercising?
The answer is both!
If you want to live long or stay fit, drink plenty of water every day! The only way to do that effectively is through proper hydration: lots and lots of water. If you are feeling like crap because you haven’t been drinking enough…if you want to feel good for longer…if you want more energy…if you want better health…then drink more water!
Conclusion
It sounds like a weird idea, but it’s actually very simple: drink a lot of water. This is not just a matter of hydration, although that is critical. Water is vital to the health of your body – and it helps it grow and repair itself. But your liver, despite its importance for your well-being, is not known for being particularly healthy.
