Your liver: the key to good health
About a year ago I attended a conference on autism at which a key speaker opened his remarks by asking what did breast cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, obesity and autism all have in common. Most of the audience, made up entirely of doctors and nutritionists, looked puzzled and there were quite a few blank stares as people struggled to find an answer. When the answer was finally given it came as quite a surprise to many: a faulty liver!
How can this possibly be? It is because the liver is the most metabolically active organ in the body. It is where fat and calories are burned. It is also where toxins from the environment and those the body itself produces are processed so that they can be excreted from the body. If the liver doesn’t do this job well toxins will be retained and, over time, cause damage to the brain, heart, breasts or any other organ or part of the body.
Nebraska University breast cancer researcher Eleanor Rogan, PhD has been quietly putting out study after study showing that, in both human and animal models, the most significant risk factor for breast cancer is faulty hormone detoxification in the liver. While the body produces hormones, and these play essential roles for life and health, they also have to be broken down and excreted, and this is the liver’s job.
If the liver becomes toxic, congested, or for any other reason fails to effectively break down hormones, the risk of breast and other hormone-related cancer goes up dramatically.
Dr. Rogan then showed that taking something as simple and basic as the supplement N-Acetyl-Cysteine (NAC) is enough to reduce the risk of breast cancer. NAC stimulates liver detoxification and it is not by coincidence that it was also shown to help autistic children. Are you beginning to see the link? Autism, of course, has nothing to do with hormones but everything to do with a buildup of toxins in the body resulting from the fact that the liver is not doing its job adequately.
Australian physician Sandra Cabot, MD has an interesting story to tell. As a medical student she found the work of naturopaths and other natural healers to be fascinating. She spent a great deal of time observing them work, and noticed that they often used liver cleanses or supplements for the liver to treat a wide range of chronic health conditions. Decades later, as an established mainstream physician, she found out that with all the fancy tools and drugs at her disposal she was simply not able to help these people. Among them were those with chronic fatigue, unrelenting pain, weight gain, depression, and more. At most she could just cover up the symptoms for a while.
Eventually she went back to her roots and started to recommend natural treatments for the liver for the patients she couldn’t help. Lo and behold many got better. This lead Dr. Cabot to develop a program she then outlined in her book “The Liver Cleansing Diet.” The program includes a simple and clean diet free of junk and processed and refined foods, daily fresh vegetable juices, and a supplement called Livatone Plus.
In my opinion the program is good overall, though more can be done on an individual basis. The diet is relatively basic, but it will not add more stress to the liver, and will enable healing to take place over time. Fresh vegetable juices are a source of enzymes and a wide range of nutrients that help heal and regenerate not only the liver, but the body as a whole. It is not a surprise that freshly squeezed juices are a mainstay of many natural treatment programs, including the Gerson cancer treatment that has been helping people for many decades. For additional information on Gerson see my article ”Cancer Politics, Early Detection, and Alternative Treatment Options” in Newsletters.
Finally, Dr. Cabot’s supplement is very well-formulated and contains all the nutrients and herbs known to help heal the liver, stimulate detoxification and help the drainage of toxins. If you’d like to try it, it can be ordered directly from the author or, at the same price, from this website.
