October is Liver Awareness Month!

The liver plays a major role in eliminating toxins out of the blood, keeping the electrolyte levels under control, and also serves as a store house for the sugar glucose. Though mostly unappreciated, the liver plays an important role in the digestive system as well; it releases enzymes and ‘bile’, which helps to breakdown fats in the food we consume.
So it goes without saying, the liver is one of the most important organs in the human body. But how much do we actually care about it? Well, October is the month which celebrates the importance of the liver, so it’s time we take a closer look. This article provides a quick breakdown on the various ways in which one can prevent the liver from getting damaged and to keep it hale and healthy.

What causes liver damage?

The liver takes responsibility of cleaning up the toxins in our body, so inevitably it faces the risk of getting poisoned itself, due to the toxins. Though we can do only little to prevent the take-up of toxins naturally produced by our body, from our foods, and other environmental pollutants; we can do a significant deal to prevent the accumulation of additional toxins that can severely damage the liver.
Undoubtedly alcohol and tobacco top the list when it comes to producing liver harming toxins. So keeping their consumption to a minimum can reduce the damage significantly. But besides these, the medications we take can also cause major damage. Components such as Tylenol and anti-cholesterol medications are known to damage the liver.

How to keep the liver healthy?

While exercise remains the top most remedy, simple dietary changes and a little precaution can go a long way to keep your liver healthy for years. Dietary changes include reducing consumption of high calories and high sugar content foods and also fatty foods that contain high levels of LDL cholesterol in them.
It has been studied that coffee and other antioxidant rich foods can help the liver function properly. Also some of the natural herbs such as milk thistle seeds and Borotutu Bark are believed to completely restore the liver’s function.

Ailments that affect the liver and methods to prevent them

Liver cirrhosis is a known progressive disease that is known to impair the liver’s functionality. Cirrhosis can be caused due to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) or excessive alcohol consumption and smoking habits. Another common ailment that affects the liver is Hepatitis.
Classified into types A, B, and C, hepatitis is a viral infection that can be easily prevented with proper vaccination. So to conclude keeping the liver healthy is no big task, all it takes is some positive effort, a few changes to your lifestyle and being aware of the various dangers.

Written by Benjamin Roussey for bodono.

Benjamin Roussey is from Sacramento, CA. He has two master’s degrees and served four years in the US Navy. His bachelor’s degree is from CSUS (1999) where he was on a baseball pitching scholarship. He has an MBA in Global Management from the Univ. of Phoenix (2006) where he attributes his writing prowess. He has worked everywhere from small businesses to large corporations, and also for public agencies. He has lived in Korea and Saudi Arabia where he was an ESL instructor. He misses Saudi food and living in Korea. Benjamin has a tremendous work ethic and is quite focused. Now he writes professionally for several clients that covers one sector of our economy to another. Currently he lives in the Phoenix area after living in Cabo San Lucas, MX for 3 years. He enjoys sports, movies, reading, and current events when he is not working online: www.infinista.com.