Madison Area Lyme Support Group

Your liver might just be the most underappreciated organ in your body.

It is your body’s largest internal organ and one of its important functions is to help remove toxins and harmful substances. Unlike your gall bladder or appendix, you can’t live without your liver, at least not for very long.

And unlike some other organs in your body, such as your heart and lungs, it can be difficult to measure how well your liver is working. That is, until it falls to about 10 percent of its healthy working capacity.

Your liver can’t skip beats or produce a cough to warn you when it needs help…

Just because it sits quietly in your body most of the time doesn’t mean it can thrive without special care. Maybe 20 or 30 years ago, a healthy person’s liver did just fine without extra support, but today we live in a different world.

Today your liver confronts – and must overcome – challenges it’s never faced before.

Live Without Your Liver? Don’t Bet Your Life on It

Your liver, which is made up of two main lobes, is located beneath your diaphragm and on top of your stomach, right kidney, and intestines.

Besides its primary role of protecting your body from harmful substances, your liver plays other key roles, too.

Your healthy liver:

• Produces bile, which helps carry away waste and break down fats
• Helps regulate the levels of sugar, protein, and fat entering your bloodstream
• Clears your blood of drugs, alcohol, and other potentially harmful substances
• Processes nutrients absorbed by your intestines during digestion
• Produces cholesterol, proteins, and clotting factors to help your blood clot
• Regulates many of your hormones
• Neutralizes highly reactive oxygen molecules, or free radicals

After your liver breaks down harmful substances, they enter your blood or bile and leave your body either through your kidneys and urine or your feces after traveling through your intestines.

Normally, all these functions go on like clockwork, without much support on your part. But today many potential threats to your liver’s well-being prevail…

Is Your Expanding Waistline Putting Your Liver at Risk?

Stunning new research suggests that your liver may be aging faster than the rest of your body if you hold excess weight in your waist.

Researchers found that for each 10-unit increase in body mass index, or BMI, the physiological age of the liver grew by 3.3 years.

To put that into real numbers…

Suppose a 5-foot, 8-inch man weighs 130 pounds and has a BMI of 20. A second man of the same height and age weighs 230 pounds, and has a BMI of 35.

The liver of the second man is likely five years older than the liver of the normal weight man.

And here’s another interesting finding… If the second man decided to have surgery to rapidly lose the excess weight, the age of his liver wouldn’t change!

What’s behind this vicious threat to your liver? It may be linked to one of its worst enemies.

One of Your Liver’s Worst Enemies Isn’t What You Might Expect

I’m guessing many people would say their liver’s worst enemy is alcohol. Yes, alcohol is harmful to your liver, but there’s another substance that’s equally so – and far more pervasive.

Unlike alcohol, this other substance can be found in some form in nearly everyprocessed food in your grocery store.

Fructose, the most damaging type of sugar to your body, is particularly hard on your liver, much like alcohol:

• • Fructose must be 100 percent broken down by your liver. Glucose on the other hand only needs to be partially broken down before it can be utilized.
  • Fructose is metabolized directly into fat that gets stored in your liver and other internal organs and tissues as body fat, which leads to mitochondrial malfunction

• Fructose produces toxic metabolites and superoxide free radicals when it is metabolized, that can lead to inflammation in your liver

Fructose is a cheap form of sugar that’s found in thousands of food products and drinks. It’s often deliberately disguised by the use of many different names, so the only way to steer clear of it completely is to avoid eating processed foods.

I believe fructose and other non-fiber carbs are important factors behind the rising rates of liver issues and at least 30 other health concerns. Tragically, even children are now showing signs normally associated with alcohol abuse from their consumption of fructose!

Other Silent Slayers of Liver Function

Unfortunately, fructose isn’t the only challenge your liver has to deal with. Plenty more lurk in your home, water, and the air you breathe. Chemicals in plastics like phthalates and BPA/BPS, flame-retardants, and formaldehyde may be found in your:

• Furniture and carpeting
• Vinyl floor coverings
• Building materials
• Paint
• Mattresses
• Vinyl shower curtain
• Children’s toys
• Plastic water bottles and containers
• Grocery store receipts
• Scented personal care products

These contaminants enter your body through your skin or your lungs, or from the food and beverages you consume.

No matter how they enter your body, they end up in your bloodstream and your liver must process them.

Compared to 20 or 30 years ago, we are exposed to far more chemicals in our food, as well as in our living and working environments.

Yet your liver hasn’t changed – it hasn’t evolved to keep up with the increase in challenges. You still depend on it, day in and day out, to help minimize the effects of potential contaminants.

Simple Ways to Help Support Your Liver

Most likely by now you have a healthy appreciation of what your liver is doing for you – or at least trying to do.

Responsible for so many essential tasks, your liver can use all the support it can get. Luckily, there’s much you can do.

Of course, in today’s world you can’t safeguard your liver function 100 percent. But it’s worth doing all that you can…

To help protect your liver, I recommend:

1. Restricting alcohol consumption, and avoid completely if taking acetaminophen or Tylenol
2. Minimizing or avoiding the use of potentially harmful acetaminophen or Tylenol (be sure to check labels, it’s found in many over-the-counter products!)
3. Attaining and maintaining your ideal weight
4. Restricting your intake of fructose from all sources to about 15 to 25 grams per day (avoid sweeteners in foods, fruit juices, dried fruits, and limit sugary fruits like grapes, pears, plums, and red apples)
5. Avoiding or minimizing contact with toxic chemicals like pesticides, cleansers, paints and solvents
6. Buying products packed in glass containers and limiting your use of plastics, including plastic wrap
7. Adding liver-protective foods to your diet, like fermented vegetables, dark leafy green and cruciferous vegetables, “clean” sea vegetables, sprouts, artichokes, garlic and onions, avocados, berries, whey protein powder from grass-fed cows, and organic pastured eggs and grass-fed meat

In addition to these commonsense measures, there’s another simple way to help support your healthy liver function.

Trifecta Support for Your Liver Function

In my opinion, there are three ingredients that provide healthy liver function support:*

• N-Acetyl L-Cysteine (NAC)
• Milk thistle
• Organic broccoli sprouts

I’ve combined this “perfect trifecta” of ingredients into my Liver Support for regular, daily use to specifically target six areas of concern:

1. Provide on-going support to help minimize the damaging effects of contaminants on your liver*
2. Help maintain intracellular levels of glutathione*
3. Maintain the normal metabolism of alcohol*
4. Provide antioxidant mitochondria support*
5. Support your body’s detoxification (cleansing)*
6. Provide short-term support for occasional acute events*

Let’s take a closer look at the first of these remarkable ingredients…

The Leader of Your Antioxidant Army… And It Helps Save Lives

Glutathione is your body’s principal antioxidant, and exists in each of your cells. With its lead status, it functions by keeping all the other antioxidants in line and performing at their peak.*

This super-antioxidant’s primary task is to help protect your body from free radical damage, wastes, and potentially harmful substances.* Glutathione is one of the most important factors in your body’s detoxification arsenal and is crucial for your liver’s well-being.*

As you age, your body’s ability to produce glutathione declines. And many substances like alcohol, drugs, and contaminants can deplete your glutathione levels.

While a glutathione supplement may sound like a good idea, oral glutathione is merely three amino acids and is rapidly broken down in your stomach by digestive enzymes. Even if it were effective, I still wouldn’t advise taking glutathione in oral form as it may interfere with your body’s ability to produce it naturally.

What I recommend instead for restoring the levels of glutathione inside of your cells is provide the raw materials for making glutathione so your body can produce the right amounts it needs and not any more.

One of the best ways to do this is use a derivative of the amino acid cysteine, called N-acetyl cysteine, or NAC for short.* NAC comes with four decades of scientific validation, and has been used in traditional medicine for over 30 years.

One of NAC’s primary roles in conventional medicine is as a treatment for acute poisoning with acetaminophen-containing pain-relieving drugs – the number one cause of acute liver failure in the U.S.

Too high of an acetaminophen dose can exhaust the body’s glutathione reserves, leading to permanent liver damage. As its precursor, NAC quickly restores glutathione levels, and, in effect, helps save lives.*

NAC’s Actions Beyond Its Role as Precursor to Glutathione

By replenishing your cells’ supplies of glutathione on a regular basis, NAC helps your cells regain their ability to protect themselves against free radicals and other damage.* This is especially desirable as you age.

Researchers have found that NAC does more than just replenish levels of glutathione within your cells. NAC provides additional potential benefits in these areas:*

• Helps regulate the expression of many genes involved with your body’s inflammatory response*
• Supports normal healthy insulin sensitivity*
• Supports respiratory health*
• Protects tissues and cells from the effects of oxidative stress from exercise*
• Supports normal healthy cellular growth and development*

There’s no question that NAC offers valuable potential for the support of your liver health. Now let’s take a look at the second ingredient in Liver Support…

Don’t Be Fooled by Its Appearance – This Highly Valued ‘Weed’ Offers Potent Liver Support… and More*

Milk thistle has been treasured for over 2,000 years for its value in supporting liver, kidney, and gall bladder health.*

When the leaves of the plant are crushed, they release a milky sap. Hence the name…

The herb milk thistle is an excellent source of the antioxidant compound silymarin, its primary active component.

Extracted from the plant seeds, silymarin consists of three flavonoids – silibinin, silidianin, and silicristin – all of which may help repair liver cells that have been damaged by environmental pollutants, alcohol, and fructose.*

Silymarin has been found to increase glutathione and help prevent its depletion in your liver.* It also helps support a normal inflammatory response in your cells through its effect on gene expression.

Support Your Liver With Up to 100 Times More of the Sulforaphane Precursor in Fresh Broccoli

Glucoraphanin is a precursor to sulforaphane, a potent liver-supporting substance found in regular organic broccoli – its best-known source.

However, fresh, young broccoli sprouts – grown from organic broccoli seeds – can contain up to 100 times the amount of this glucoraphanin!

When animals in studies chewed or swallowed vegetables containing glucoraphanin, the resulting sulforaphane fired up the body’s waste disposal system.

This not only helped the body rid itself of pollutants, it also helped protect the body from potential harm.*

Researchers wanted to see how these substances would work in humans, so they travelled to one of the most heavily industrialized and polluted regions in China to put their theory to the test…

They recruited a total of 291 men and women living in a rural farming community in Jiangsu Province, China, about 50 miles north of Shanghai for their 12-week trial.

The treatment group received a half-cup of a beverage made with broccoli sprout powder containing glucoraphanin and sulforaphane, combined with sterilized water, pineapple and lime juice.

Urine and blood samples were taken during the trail to measure inhaled air pollutants.

The results were astounding… Excretion of a common and potentially hazardous airborne pollutant increased the very first day in the broccoli sprout powder group – by a whopping 61 percent! And increased excretion continued during the entire 12-week period.

Researchers concluded that the sulforaphane in the sprout powder might in some way be signaling to the cells the need to adapt to and survive a broad range of environmental contaminants, including those in water and food.

Based on these studies and more, I decided that organic broccoli sprout powder had to be part of my Liver Support!

Are You Ready to Give Your Liver the Support It Likely Needs?*

As I pointed out earlier, it can be difficult to know exactly how well your liver is functioning. That is, until it’s possibly too late.

But one thing we do know for certain is that your liver continuously labors hard to protect your body from the effects of environmental pollutants and chemicals.

Now you can help give it the support it may need with my Liver Support. With my unique “trifecta” formula, you get:

• NAC for its ability to restore glutathione supplies and support mitochondrial function*
• Milk Thistle Extract for its silymarin to help repair damaged liver cells and increase glutathione levels*
• Organic Broccoli Sprout Powder for its rich supply of sulforaphane precursor to support your rapid excretion of environmental pollutants*

And much more… Liver Support provides the perfect tool to help minimize the damaging effects of everyday pollutants and stresses on your liver. And you can take it every day!

Take control of the health of your liver today and order Liver Support. When it comes to a hard-working organ like your liver, you don’t want to take chances.