Love Your Liver, Pamper Your Pancreas

Part 1 of 2

Illustration © D. Yael Bernhard

One of the best ways to improve your health is to pay attention to your liver. In Old English, this large abdominal organ was called a “lifer” – for good reason. In this article we’ll explore some of the many vital functions of the liver, and how you can support it with nutrition and herbs. Love your liver, and it will love you back, bringing benefit to your entire body. 

It’s hard to overstate the importance of the liver. Every day and every night, this marvelous organ performs over 500 functions to keep your body alive and humming. It stores fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. It eats foreign substances and bacteria, including tumor-infected cells. It makes all kinds of nutrients – for example, converting fat and protein to glucose, as well as sugars such as galactose and fructose. It also stores sugars in the form of glycogen which may be called up as needed, converted back to glucose and released into the bloodstream as readily usable energy. Your liver makes bile from cholesterol and recycled blood cells, which is then secreted into the digestive tract to emulsify fats, assimilate calcium, and convert beta-carotenes to vitamin A. It creates clotting factors, and plays an important role in the production of choline, lipoproteins, cholesterol, phospholipids, and glucose tolerance factor (GTF) to help regulate blood sugar. It is also responsible for regulating thyroid function by converting the hormone thyroxine into its active form. These are just a few of the liver’s many functions.

Other than your skin, your liver is the largest organ in your body – and the two are closely related in their ability to eliminate toxins. A healthy liver makes healthy skin, reducing acne, age spots, eczema, boils, and abscesses; and maintaining a healthy glow.

One of the liver’s most important jobs is detoxification. In today’s polluted world, your liver has to work very hard to rid your body of toxins. It must break down every substance in your “exposome” (everything you consume, inhale, and come in contact with through your digestive system, your lungs, and your skin) that is not water-soluble, so that you can pee it out. This includes “xenobiotics” (foreign substances, often synthetic chemicals) such as environmental toxins, pesticides, oral contraceptives, pharmaceutical drugs (especially acetaminophen¹), food preservatives, paint fumes, exhaust fumes, smoke (including smoked foods) – all increase the liver’s toxic load. Natural toxins must also be cleansed by the liver, such as ammonia produced as a by-product of fermentation of food in the intestines. The liver also breaks down steroid hormones that are produced endogenously; worn-out blood cells, and hormones such as adrenaline, aldosterone, estrogen, and insulin after they have performed their needed functions. Some substances found in food, such as soft drinks and caffeinated beverages, require a lot of energy for the liver to break down. Alcohol places an especially heavy load on the liver, which produces an enzyme that alters it into a breakdown product called acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is even more toxic than alcohol, but the liver also produces a second enzyme to break it down further to a nontoxic substance that ultimately becomes water and carbon dioxide. Some of the alcohol you drink penetrates the lining of your stomach and is immediately absorbed, but by far most of it is processed by the liver. 

After breaking down toxins, the liver also helps to eliminate them from your body. Foods such as cumin seed, poppy seed, turmeric, basil, parsley, and dandelion aid in this phase of the liver’s work.

Your liver is a multitasking miracle worker, and can regenerate itself more than any other organ – but it has limits. The greater its burden, the fewer its resources to handle important jobs like neutralizing cancer cells or eliminating toxins that damage your brain. When drinking alcohol, for example, intoxication occurs when the liver runs out of glutathione – an important antioxidant – and cysteine, an amino acid – to process the alcohol. The overload of too much alcohol consumed too quickly then reaches your brain. The toxic effects of alcohol are felt by every organ in the body. Prolonged or excessive drinking produces cumulative, irreversible damage not only to the liver, but also the brain, kidneys, heart, and all other bodily systems. Alcohol has no nutrients, yet it is caloric, triggering the storage of excess fat in the liver, a condition known as fatty liver disease. Under such conditions the liver fails to activate vitamin D, a crucial nutrient for maintaining healthy bones, teeth, and immunity against viruses in particular, among numerous other functions. It may also fail to process folate, which produces new cells, especially of the intestines and blood, resulting in further nutrient deficiencies.

Reducing your toxic load makes life easier for your liver. The less alcohol, caffeine, smoke, and chemicals you consume, the better. This includes food additives and chemical preservatives, some of which are not required by law to be listed as ingredients. For example, wheat flour in many breads is preserved with potassium bromate – but as a sub-ingredient, this harmful chemical does not appear on the bread label. 

The liver does most of its detoxification work at night, while you are sleeping and fasting. Prolonged fasting gives the liver a longer break from its day job of digestive work, freeing its energy and resources to cleanse itself and your body. Therefore, time-restricted eating and adequate sleep support the liver. 

Reducing your intake of sugar and refined carbohydrates also lightens your liver’s load. Why? Because the liver makes triglycerides from sugar in order to store it as fat. This is why excess carbohydrates causes weight gain and increases unhealthy cholesterol. Eat less sugar, and your liver and heart will both be grateful.

Exercise helps the liver by moving blood more vigorously. A huge amount of blood circulates through the liver – up to 25% of cardiac output. Having butchered many a deer in my life, I’m familiar with how much blood the liver holds. It’s impressive.

The liver has many allies that you can include in your diet. Fiber-rich foods enable toxins expelled by the liver to bind to insoluble mass in the intestines and be carried out, rather than be absorbed and recycled through the liver again. Minerals and vitamins help support the enzymes that catalyze the liver’s work. Antioxidants do some of the liver’s work by reducing inflammation and neutralizing free radicals in the bloodstream. Especially helpful are foods rich in flavonoids, such as rosemary and green tea; and sulphur-containing foods such as garlic, onions, leeks, shallots, and eggs. Fruits and vegetables are wonderful sources of antioxidants. Cruciferous veggies specifically aid the liver in its detoxifying work by helping to convert toxic chemicals into water-soluble compounds that may be excreted by the kidneys. One of my favorite antioxidants is fresh liquid goat whey, which I make at home by curdling goat milk. Second best are supplements such as goat or sheep whey powder, and N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC), which provides a high dose of cysteine, the above-mentioned protein that partners with glutathione.

Mushrooms are also your liver’s friends, with hepatoprotective properties – especially Shiitake, Reishi, Cordyceps, and even Wood Ear (used to make Chinese hot & sour soup).² Both culinary and medicinal, Shiitake mushrooms are easy to incorporate into the diet, and are prized for their ability to improve liver function and help produce antibodies to Hepatitis B. Reishi is notable for its ability to increase glutathione and reduce oxidative stress, thus supporting the liver. Numerous studies have shown Reishi’s ability to improve markers of hepatic health.³ When using medicinal mushroom extracts, with the exception of certain mycelial preparations made in Asia, liquid extracts of fruiting bodies are more bioavailable and generally superior. Powdered mushrooms (or powdered grain substrates sprayed with liquid extracts) are largely passed as insoluble fiber. The same is true of most herbal extracts. Liquid is better.

The liver’s hepatocytes (cells) also have herbal helpers. Both protective and restorative, milk thistle seed extract contains silymarin, a flavonoid that increases glutathione, stabilizes hepatocytes, and increases the cells that eat foreign substances and tumor-infected cells.⁴ Nettles infusion is especially nutritive for the liver, as is blood-cleansing burdock root infusion. (See my article “Infuse Yourself With Liquid Nourishment” to learn how to make herbal infusions.) Common chickweed, the shade-loving weed with tiny star-like white flowers, is reputed to nourish liver circulation and restore hepatic veins. Chickweed is best eaten raw in salads. These herbs help maintain healthy cell membranes in hepatocytes, so that they themselves are not damaged by the toxins they work to process.

Dandelion is a supreme ally of the liver. This common wildflower proliferates in soils that have been disturbed by human habitation, acting as a depurative to cleanse the soil of toxins, just as it does to the liver. Though not popular among homeowners pursuing a weed-free lawn, dandelion is a powerhouse of both nutritional and medicinal benefits – as well as an important source of pollen and food for bees and multiple other insects. Dandelion root infusion or extract helps relieve liver congestion from alcohol or drug abuse, chemical toxins, pharmaceutical drugs, jaundice, hepatitis, and chemotherapy. It is also beneficial to the pancreas, kidneys, stomach, and gall bladder.⁵ It contains carotenes and mineral salts, and provides choline, the precursor of acetylcholine – a vital neurotransmitter which supports healthy cell membranes, builds myelin nerve sheaths, promotes neuroplasticity in the brain, and helps prevent depression and neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimers disease. 

Finally, eating liver is beneficial to your liver. There is no more nutrient-dense food on the planet,⁶ so you don’t need much. Deer liver is my absolute favorite. Chicken livers are readily available and inexpensive – great to sauté with onions, leeks, or shallots.

The pancreas and the liver dwell in close proximity and are intimately connected. Liver fatigue from overconsumption of toxins or overeating in general also affects the pancreas, which in turn causes the liver to suffer more. The same is true of the kidneys and other digestive organs, all of which are interconnected. But it is the pancreas, which regulates blood glucose, that is perhaps most adversely affected by our sugar-addicted and chemical-laden society. This is also where we are most empowered to make positive changes with good nutrition. By pampering your pancreas, you are not only improving your blood sugar and reducing chronic inflammation, but also engaging your liver’s remarkable restorative abilities to improve your overall health.  

We’ll focus on the pancreas in Part 2 of this article.

To your good health –

Yael Bernhard
Certified Integrative Health & Nutrition Coach

Yael Bernhard is a writer, illustrator, book designer and fine art painter with a lifelong passion for nutrition and herbal medicine.  She was certified by Duke University as an Integrative Health Coach in 2021 and by Cornell University in Nutrition & Healthy Living in 2022.  For information about private health coaching or nutrition programs for schools, please respond directly to this newsletter, or email dyaelbernhard@protonmail.com. Her art newsletter, “Image of the Week,” may be found here. Visit her online gallery of illustration, fine art, and children’s books here.

Information in this newsletter is provided for educational – and inspirational – purposes only.

1. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/acute-liver-failure/symptoms-causes/syc-20352863#

2. Hobbs, Christopher, Medicinal Mushrooms: An Exploration of Healing, Tradition, and Culture, 1986

3. Rogers, Robert, Medicinal Mushrooms: The Human Clinical Trials, pg. 47

4. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24118806/

5. Weed, Susun, Healing Wise, 1989, pp142-161

6. https://chriskresser.com/natures-most-nutritious-superfood/