Our liver serves as the body’s main filter, breaking down pollutants into waste products, cleaning your blood, and metabolizing drugs and nutrients to produce some of the body’s most crucial proteins. It is crucial to maintain your liver’s health and avoid overindulging because it plays such a crucial role in the body’s general management. After a weekend of bingeing on food or alcohol, to maintain everyday liver function, or to heal an already damaged liver, a plethora of treatments such as liver detox pills have flooded the market in recent years with the claim to detoxify and cleanse your liver.
How does the liver work?
The liver, which weighs around 3 pounds, performs many crucial tasks. Food is filtered by your liver after it has passed through your bloodstream and is fully digested by your stomach and intestines. Fat is broken down by the liver to produce energy. This organ produces bile, a yellowish-green fluid that helps your body break down and absorb fat. This organ is also involved in the metabolism of sugar. It takes in glucose from your blood and transforms it into glycogen so that it may be stored. The liver releases glycogen whenever your blood sugar levels drop to keep them stable. Alcohol, drugs, and other toxins are drawn from your blood and sent to your liver.
What is liver detox?
A liver detox, cleanse, or flush supplement claims that it can help you get rid of toxins from your body, aid in weight loss, or enhance your health. However, you should be aware that a liver detox won’t be useful if you believe you need one. The majority of people believe that a cleanse will aid in the liver’s removal of toxins following excessive alcohol consumption or bad eating. Some people believe it will improve their liver’s daily function. Many think it will aid in the treatment of liver disease.
Is liver detox safe?
Liver problems can be treated medically. But there is no proof that supplements or detoxification procedures can repair liver damage. Detoxes may even harm your liver. According to studies, liver damage caused by dietary supplements and herbal medicines is increasing. For instance, green tea extract can harm the liver in a similar way to hepatitis. Additionally, the coffee enemas used in some protocols might result in infections and potentially fatal electrolyte issues.
Sometimes there is relatively little quality control during the supplement manufacturing process. For instance, research that examined the ingredients of supplements found that several did not even contain the active component that was claimed on their labels.