Tuesday, January 08, 2008 Liver-damaging habits By Henrylito D. Tacio
ON YOUR right side, just above your intestine in front of your kidneys and under your rib cage beneath your lungs, lies the wedge-shaped liver. Blood is constantly flowing through this organ -- in fact, all the blood in your body flows through it to process useful nutrients and get rid of toxins.
The liver is the largest -- and in some ways the most complex -- organ in the body. "The liver does much more than purify the blood and process nutrients," notes Dr. Alan Berkman, an American viral expert and author of several books. "Its healthy function is essential to other bodily systems -- the blood, bile, lymph, and immune systems - and it also performs more than five hundred chemical functions that make your body work properly."
According to Dr. Berkman, the functions of liver include: manufacturing proteins; storing certain vitamins, iron and other minerals, and sugars; regulating the transport of fat stores and controlling the production and excretion of cholesterol; regulating blood clotting; producing bile essential to the proper digestion of fats; purifying the blood by neutralizing and destroying poisonous substances; metabolizing alcohol and other drugs; maintaining hormone balance; forming blood before birth; protecting the body from infection by producing immune factors and removing bacteria from the bloodstream; and regenerating its own damaged tissue.
"If your liver is functioning poorly, so is almost everything else in your body," points out Dr. Berkman. "If the liver fails, other organs begin to fail as well." Typically, w hen liver fails death occurs within 24 hours.
That's how important liver is. But most people damage their liver without knowing it by doing unhealthful habits. Among these are:
1. Sleeping too late and waking up too late. Recent studies have shown that from 9-11 p.m., that is the time for eliminating toxic chemicals (detoxification) from the antibody system (lymph nodes).
Starting from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., the detoxification process in the liver is being executed and ideally should be done in a deep sleep state. There is indeed truth to what American statesman Benjamin Franklin once said: "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy and wise."
2. Not urinating in the morning. This is the reason why you have to wake up early. As stated earlier, one of the liver's main functions is to break down harmful or toxic substances absorbed from the intestine or manufactured elsewhere in the body and then to excrete them as harmless by-products into the bile or the blood.
"By-products excreted into the blood are filtered out by the kidneys, and then leave the body in the urine," informs the second edition of 'The Merck Manual of Medical Information.'
3. Too much eating. In other words, gluttony (derived from the Latin 'gluttire,' meaning to gulp down or swallow). In some Christian denominations, gluttony is considered one of the seven deadly sins-a misplaced desire of food or it's withholding from the needy. Proverbs 23:2 stated: "When you sit to dine with a ruler, note well what is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony."
4. Too much drinking. Whether at home or in parties, drink alcohol in moderation. Some health experts claim that a little is good for you and keeps your heart healthy but too much stresses the liver. Or, better still, don't drink at all!
5. Skipping breakfast. Sugars are stored in the liver as glycogen and then broken down and released into the bloodstream as glucose when needed -- for example, when sugar levels in the blood become too low, such as during sleep at night when you spend many hours without eating.
Now, if you skip breakfast, what would happen to your liver if there were no more sugar being stored? It's no wonder why many nutritionists claim breakfast is a very important (although not necessarily the largest) meal.
6. Consuming too much medication. When you contemplate taking a prescription drug, it is very important to understand the consequences of these drugs.
Virtually all synthetic drugs, as well as many natural drugs and compounds, are regarded by the liver as toxic.
For instance, many of the hypoglycemic agents (those that lower blood sugar) used to treat Type II diabetes are known to cause liver damage.
