Liver | Liver Cleanse | Cleansing Liver

The Liver – Filter, Factory and Warehouse.
The liver is the largest solid organ in the body. It performs a variety of essential functions. It acts as a filter. The liver is the body’s blood filter. It traps, breaks down and eliminates bacteria, poisons and toxins. It also takes old blood cells out of circulation and eliminates them. It is a factory. The liver manufactures enzymes, cholesterol and proteins, converts beta carotene into Vitamin A and produces bile for digestion. The liver converts fats into sugars and sugars into fats as needed by the body. It is a warehouse. The liver stores spare blood reserves for when it is needed. It stores fat in the form of cholesterol and sugar based fuel reserves called glycogen. It stores some cholesterol for short term use and sends some cholesterol to the fatty tissue of the body for long term energy storage. It also stores Vitamins B-12, E, K, D and some minerals like ferritin used in the manufacture of blood.
The liver transforms fats and proteins into fuel for the body. The fat we eat is carried to the liver broken down and burned to produce tremendous amounts of energy or released into the blood stream as fatty fuel for the rest of the body. The liver binds excess glucose molecules together to form glycogen a long animal starch storage molecule. When blood sugar is low the liver breaks down glycogen and releases glucose molecules into the blood. The liver also converts glucose to fat. If all the glycogen is used up, it can change fats and amino acids to glucose. The liver regulates the amount of cholesterol in the body like a thermostat. It synthesizes cholesterol when it is needed and breaks down and eliminates excess cholesterol when there is too much. Many of the cholesterol molecules that are broken down and eliminated have toxins and hormones attached to them that need to be eliminated. There are the hormones manufactured by your body, plant hormones acquired through your diet and toxic pollutants that are chemically similar to our hormones. In order, these are known as endogenous, phyto and xeno hormones. All three are lipophilic meaning they are carried by fat molecules. Toxins that are attached to fat molecules in this way are very destructive and eliminating them requires a lot of the liver’s energy. Lipophilic xenoestrogens include such cancerous substances as DDT. It is important to get them out of the body.

How The Liver Works
The Liver receives 25% of the oxygen rich blood sent by the heart from the lungs via the hepatic artery. The hepatic portal vein carries food rich, oxygen poor blood from the intestines to the liver. These two blood flows meet in a central cavity of the liver where they are mixed and drained off into the left and right lobules. These lobules contain hepatocytes and macrophanges. Hepatocytes do the factory work of the liver and are involved in protein and cholesterol synthesis, processing carbohydrates and the manufacture and excretion of bile. Hepatocytes are also engaged in the breakdown and excretion of endogenous toxins that are manufactured by the body as well as exogenous toxins that the body has picked up through the environment. Liver detoxification occurs in large part where dangerous lipophilic toxins carried by cholesterol molecules are broken down into less harmful water soluble toxins that can be eliminated. Macrophages, meaning big eaters, engulf and digest millions of bacteria as well as old red blood cells. The blood entering the liver from the digestive tract is full of bacteria and toxins and is highly poisonous. Macrophages eat these bacteria to keep them from escaping into the bloodstream. Bile is the waste product of the liver cell. This green liquid contains bile salts that are necessary for proper digestion of fats. Bile is squeezed into the upper intestine by the liver and gall bladder. Small bile canals carry the liver’s waste products away and drain into the bile duct.

What Goes Wrong With The Liver
The liver is a factory, filter and warehouse. It also regulates the level of cholesterol in the body by making and sending it out when it is needed and taking it in and breaking it down when it is not needed. This regulatory system can get overwhelmed when there is a large toxic load, excessive consumption of cholesterol containing foods or a high intake of saturated fats causing the liver to produce a super abundance of cholesterol. This excess cholesterol floats around until it adheres to the walls of blood vessels and gets oxidized. Oxidized low density lipoproteins form the cell plaques of early blood vessel disease. LDL only causes damage to the body in its’ oxidized states. When the liver gets clogged with fats and toxins, rather than filter out toxins efficiently it allows them to pass through and many of them can wind up in the brain as they circulate throughout the body. When the liver is clogged with fat cholesterol builds up in the bloodstream, oxidizes and destroys your circulatory system. It is necessary to cleanse and flush the liver on a periodic basis so that there is room for it to perform its’ functions without the encumbrance of excess fat and toxins.
The liver sits on top of the stomach and below the diaphragm. When it becomes engorged with a toxic load it bloats out from under the rib cage and does not benefit from the undulating action of peristalsis and the rhythmic massaging action of the diaphragm. The diaphragm gently pumps the filter we call the liver as we breathe to keep it working properly. A swollen liver is not a filter or factory – it is a fatty toxic sponge. When it is distended it moves out of position causing matters to get progressively worse.