Your liver is one of the most overworked organs in your body with over 500 different functions. These include detoxifying chemicals, storing some vitamins, controlling cholesterol, metabolizing fat and regulating hormones. In today's world, replete with alcohol, tobacco smoke, environmental pollutants, food additives, pesticides and chemicals in our personal care products, your liver may need a boost to keep it functioning in tip-top shape.
Milk Thistle
A common weed, milk thistle contains a powerful compound called silymarin, which protects the liver by inhibiting damaging substances that can cause liver cell damage. By some reports, silymarin also appears to stimulate liver cell regeneration.
Silymarin also helps prevent the depletion of the nutrient glutathione, one of the most critical nutrients for liver detoxification. Both alcohol consumption and exposure to various types of synthetic chemicals can deplete glutathione in the liver. You can take a standardized extract containing 140 mg of silymarin for liver cleansing and protection.
Dandelion Root
Nature grows a liver-cleansing pharmacy every spring, but we work diligently to eliminate it. It is the dreaded dandelion that most people curse, as it pokes its yellow-flowered head through the green of own lawns. Yet dandelion root is one of the finest liver cleansing herbs.
Research in the Australian "Journal of Medical Herbalism" supports the liver-regenerating properties of dandelion in cases of jaundice, liver swelling, hepatitis or just indigestion. It is also an anti-inflammatory herb. You may wish to supplement with 500 to 2,000 mg daily in capsules for two weeks to support your liver-cleansing efforts.
Turmeric
One of the main spices used in Indian cuisine, turmeric adds a yellow-orange color to foods along with its potent medicinal boost. Turmeric helps decrease cholesterol levels and functions as an anti-inflammatory in the body, while protecting the liver from free radical damage. Free radicals are highly reactive molecules that can bind to healthy cells, causing damage.
To benefit from turmeric's liver-cleansing properties, you can add it to your cooking or supplement it with 50 mg of curcumin, turmeric's active ingredient.
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