The Importance of Loving Your Liver to Lowering Your Toxic Burden

The Importance of Loving Your Liver to Lowering Your Toxic Burden

The largest organ in the body, the liver weighs three to four pounds. It’s a complex
chemical factory and master orchestrator of bodily functions that works twenty-four
hours a day. All the blood that circulates throughout the body to and from the heart
passes through the liver. This means that every calorie, nutrient, and chemical we
digest passes through the liver for a round of enzymatic activity before being
absorbed into the bloodstream.

The protective role of the liver makes it an organ of utmost importance. The
liver plays a crucial role in helping the body to break down nutrients and to build
new tissues, while it serves as a storage depot for several essential nutrients, such as
vitamins A and D, and the minerals iron and copper. The liver is also the body’s
mastermind when it comes to detoxifying, or getting rid of foreign substances or
toxins, whether they come from outside the body (pollutants, plastics, pesticides, and
so on) or from metabolic by-products inside it (aggressive estrogens [see chapter
10] and by-products from intestinal bacteria).

Your Liver Does the “Two-Step”

Using a two-step process, a healthy liver mobilizes an army of specialized
enzymes designed to neutralize harmful substances, food additives, and
pharmaceutical drugs. In what’s commonly known as phase I of the process, the
liver neutralizes offending compounds immediately. But if they are fat soluble (that
is, they dissolve in fats or oils, not water), the liver must convert them to a watersoluble
form first so that they can be excreted in urine or in bile, which carries
toxins from the liver to the intestines. This second step is known as phase II. The
liver generally uses whatever route is needed to rid the body of the chemical as
quickly and safely as possible. That’s why it’s so vital that both phases of the
detoxification process coordinate and run smoothly.