The Liver: Our Third Brain
Want to get to the root of your health condition or take your already good health up a notch? You thought the gut was important, wait until you learn about the liver! If the gut is our second brain, the liver is our third! In fact, since the liver is a key part of the digestive system, most all gut conditions and digestive disorders are directly or indirectly impacted by liver conditions – along with over a dozen other conditions mentioned below.
The liver is a major metabolic director. It's well known as a filter and detoxifier, but did you know it also processes every nutrient that we consume and every substance that the body produces, including hormones, and cholesterol? The liver’s job is huge! After absorption from the gut, the first stop before entering the blood stream, is the liver. Here is where smart liver-brain function kicks in.
As a thinking organ, the liver determines what to do with every substance we consume, essentially asking: is this friend or foe? What should I do with it? Store it? Detoxify it? Convert it into a more biologically active form? Or, ship it on through and allow it to pass into circulation toward its target tissue destination?
B Vitamins from our food or supplements are NOT in a biologically usable, active form. The liver is responsible for the co-enzyme conversion. A sluggish liver, which 80% of us walk around with, is precisely why we can be deficient in the very nutrients we consume plenty of, which I see often. Or, why we can have a hormonal imbalance in spite of hormone-producing glands, such as ovaries or thyroid, making a enough giving the appearance that blood levels are “normal.” If everything is so-called normal and you still don’t feel right, look to the liver!
In my functional nutrition practice, I give a lot of attention to liver health and see very good results even in apparently unrelated health conditions, especially hormonal issues, PCOS, menstrual disorders, peri-menopausal issues, thyroid conditions, skin problems such as acne, allergies, asthma, diabetes & other dysglycemias, high cholesterol and heart disease, arthritis and other inflammatory conditions, autoimmune diseases, and Etcetera-itis!
If ever there was a root cause, the liver is a big one, literally our body's largest, and second smartest, organ, and for good reason!
Karl Mincin is a Functional Medicine Nutritionist in practice locally for 34 years. He is available at 360.3363.2616 www.Nutrition-Testing.com IG @MincinNutritionist FB @NutritionTesting1.