Hey, guys, Dr Josh Axe here. Welcome to Ancient Medicine Today. So excited to be here with you.
On today's episode, I'm going to be covering how to heal a fatty liver. And a lot of people have liver issues and don't even realize it. Your liver is responsible for detoxing so many things we're exposed to on a regular basis from environmental toxins, heavy metals, pesticides in our foods and a whole lot more.
And at the end, you'll also learn your liver really even has to deal with certain emotions you experience, such as forgiveness, frustration and anger. So, on today's episode, I'm going to be going through how to cleanse and heal your liver. So, this is great for detox and cleansing, but especially for helping reverse and heal a fatty liver.
Let's dive right in. Number one here, hydrogenated oils. These are things you want to remove from your diet.
We know hydrogenated oils are some of the most inflammatory foods on the planet and remember this--your liver deals with fat. Your liver actually produces bile and helps you break down and digest fat, so if you're consuming inflammatory bad fats on a regular basis, that's going to cause liver inflammation, can back up the liver and the gallbladder, causing a fatty liver and toxicity in your body. Now, some of the main hydrogenated oils you want to stay away from include any type of vegetable oil that has been heated or processed, specifically soy bean oil, cottonseed oil, corn oil and even in certain regards canola oil is partially hydrogenated.
So, again, those vegetable oils you want to stay away from completely, those will cause a fatty liver in the body. Now, the good news is there are some good and healthy fats you can do that we'll cover, things like coconut oil, ghee, even animal fats that are organic tend to be much better on the body. Of course flaxseed oil is a better option as well.
But stay away from these hydrogenated oils. They're high in omega-6 fats. Them being hydrogenated as well is going to cause that liver inflammation, which will cause that fattiness to build up in your liver over time.
Number two here, sugar. Now, what's just as inflammatory as hydrogenated oil is processed sugar. Now, if we're talking about a little bit of raw local honey or fruit, those types of sweeteners your body can deal with much better, but processed sugar is very inflammatory to your entire body, including your liver.
Your liver is actually also really closely connected to insulin production in your body. It works with your pancreas at keeping your blood sugar levels balanced. What happens is if you consume too much sugar, sugar stays in your bloodstream and sugar will cause inflammation and it can cause systemic inflammation throughout your body.
But that's one of the biggest things that will cause your body to start to accumulate these bad fats surrounding your organ issues over time. So, again, getting rid of sugar. Sugar is also the biggest culprit when it comes to weight gain.
If you're overweight, one of the great things is by getting sugar out of your diet, not only is going to help you heal a fatty liver, it's also going to help you in losing weight and feeling great. Now, here are some of the top foods you need to start eating today to start to heal a fatty liver and reverse disease within your body. Number three here, we're going to talk about the number three step--get more fruits and vegetables in your diet.
Fruits and vegetables are very cleansing to your liver and to your gallbladder. So, fruits and vegetables, they really don't have any fat in them for the most part. They're just going to be high in phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals.
They're going to naturally cleanse the liver. So, whether you're doing vegetable juices, fermented vegetables like sauerkraut can be great. Also, again, any type of fruit.
These are going to be very cleansing to the liver. And number four here, drinking lots of bone broth. Bone broth contains an amino acid called glycine, which is actually responsible for supporting your liver and the detoxification process and healing the liver.
Again, if you're consuming a lot of animal meats such as chicken or beef but you're not getting those tendons and ligaments in broths, you're missing a crucial amino acid in glycine, which supports liver detoxification. So, I recommend at least one cup of bone broth every day or a scoop of bone broth powder protein every single day. The next thing here, this might surprise you, actually eating liver.
Now, within Chinese medicine, an ancient medicine, it was known that when you consumed a body part of an animal, it actually nourished that tissue of your own body. You know that chicken liver, again, organic chicken liver, is very high in B-vitamins, especially vitamin B12, very high in healthy levels of iron. These nutrients, especially these B-vitamins are crucial for liver detoxification.
So, if you want to support liver detoxification and get nature's ultimate B-vitamin, organic chicken liver, you can buy this at your local farmers market, buy it at health food stores, buy it online as well, you could have it shipped to your home, or you can buy it in tablet form as a desiccated liver tablet. But again, try and buy organic anytime you're doing chicken liver. Again, this is actually the food that's highest in B-vitamins of any food out there today.
In fact, it's more nutrient dense that kale and spinach if you look at all the nutritional factors found in chicken or beef liver. Number six here, coconut oil and flax oil. Now, coconut oil is easier for your body to digest than other oils, especially for your liver.
So, your body has to go through a more lengthy process in breaking down fats when it comes from a monounsaturated fat or a polyunsaturated fat such as almonds or avocados or olive oil versus coconut oil, these are called medium chain fatty acids. Now, one benefit, they're antimicrobial in nature, but also your body only has to go through a three-step process to burn them and utilize them for energy. So, coconut oil when you're cooking should you be your go to oil you're using on a regular basis.
I would also say using coconut milk can be great if you're looking for a milk or fat substitute. And then flaxseed oil. Now, you don't want to do large amounts of flaxseed oil, about a tablespoon once or twice a day with a little bit of lemon juice can actually naturally help cleanse your gallbladder as well as your liver, helping heal a fatty liver.
Now, let's talk about some herbal supplements and some of my favorite herbs for healing your liver specifically. Number one is going to be milk thistle. Milk thistle is sort of the ultimate detoxifier of the body.
Milk thistle we know contains a compound called silymarin, which is actually you typically want to consume 150 milligrams twice a day. You can do that in capsule form or do it as an herbal tea is greatly beneficial. So, milk thistle, one of my favorite herbs for naturally cleansing and healing the liver.
The other would be turmeric. Now, turmeric contains two compounds, one being curcumin, another one being turmerone, but curcumin specifically has been shown to help cleanse the liver as well as the kidneys, helping reverse a fatty liver. So, again, milk thistle is incredible as well as turmeric.
A few others that are greatly beneficial include artichokes and dandelion, which actually I'll talk about here in a minute when we jump into some bitter foods as we talk about dandelion being one of the best. Now, number eight is sour foods. This is another principle of Chinese medicine.
Sour foods help support it's called tonifying or strengthening the over actions of your liver. So, sour foods think sauerkraut, granny smith apples, kimchi, kombucha, natto, any food that is really more sour in nature, different types of berries, blueberries would be an example of this as well, but sour foods help support cleansing of the liver. And a couple more of my favorite sour foods would be citrus fruit such as lemons and limes as well as apple cider vinegar.
These are very, very cleansing to the liver as well and can help reverse a fatty liver. Number nine here, bitter foods. Now, bitter foods actually cause your liver and gallbladder to release bile, which in turn releases toxins from your body.
So, bitter foods, dandelion greens, arugula, watercress, these are bitter in nature. Other bitter foods include a lot of herbs such as dill and dandelion are very bitter in nature as well. These are great things to add into your diet.
Cumin is another herb that's bitter in nature. So, doing lots of herbs and spices in your diet. One thing I'd recommend here as well is drinking dandelion tea.
Dandelion and milk thistle tea throughout your day, these are very bitter, but also help your body in dumping and releasing those toxins that can be stored up in your liver and over tissues in your body. So, these top nine tips are big. But maybe the most important step of them all when it comes to cleansing and healing your liver is to practice forgiveness and build peace in your life.
Now, within Chinese medicine, they know and have studied that the emotions of frustration, anger and impatience and forgiveness, those are the biggest things that will cause your liver to store toxins and not release and cleanse and function properly. So, I would challenge you to do this. If you have people you have not forgiven in your life, go back--I would take some time right now, write down anybody who you still are holding on to hurts in your life.
It could have happened when you were a child or more recently, but write down those people and take time right now and take time right now to say out loud, "I forgive this person. " Pray it through. This is also great to do with an accountability partner, a spiritual leader, a church or a pastor or a psychologist or counselor, but forgiving people number on and then also looking at getting rid of frustration and patience in your life.
One of the ways I love to do this is going on walks in nature, taking a warm bath at night, and also just spending time reading something spiritual, like the Bible, just spending some time doing things that allow you to release impatience and frustration and anger can be greatly beneficial at helping you detox your liver. Remember these steps in closing. Number one, get rid of the hydrogenated oils out of your diet completely.
Replace them with things like flax oil, coconut oil, olive oil are better options. Remove all sugar from your diet. If you are going to do some sugar, raw local honey is best.
Eat more fruits and vegetables, drink bone broth daily. Try some organic chicken liver if you can. It's nature's natural B-vitamin.
Coconut and flax oil, herbal supplements such as milk thistle and turmeric, sour foods such as sauerkraut, green apples, lemons and limes, bitter foods such as gentian herb and dandelion and cumin are great. And then forgiveness and building peace--if you follow these tips, you're going to see your liver heal, can help reverse a fatty liver disease. Guys, I hope you've enjoyed this live training video.
This has been, Dr Josh Axe, talking about how to heal a fatty liver.
