How to support your liver this Christmas...

Christmas and New Year are often times when people overindulge and have one too many drinks. Here are Beverley's top tips to support your liver and mitigate some of the damage you may do over the festive period.

1. Start your day with half a lemon squeezed into hot water. A lovely warming start to your day for year round support. Aids detox via flushing out unwanted toxins and is also a digestive aid which assists in the breakdown of food via the production of stomach acid and bile. Bile helps us break down fats and also eliminate cholesterol and any fat soluble toxins making it an all round goody two shoes!
2. Green tea. The research on green tea is through the roof! Green tea contains phytonutrient Epigallocatchin-3-gallate or ECGC which triggers the production of enzymes and genes involved in the detox of persistent organic pollutants. Green tea is well know as a detoxer as it is involved and phase 1 and 2 liver detoxfication making it a great drink to acquire a taste for and also ideal as a cancer protective. If you are new to green tea Pukka do a great Green collection so that you can try out first. Another tip is to make your green tea in a pot with one bag instead of a cup if you find it a little bitter. You could add a slice of lemon until you get used to it. Ideally the longer it steeps (minimum 5 mins recommended and with water off the boil) the more EGCG we benefit from.
3. Get your bowels moving daily! It’s amazing how many of us don’t have a good quality bowel movement daily. Detoxification begins with getting the bowels moving. If we don’t keep our bowels on top form, we add to the workload of our poor old livers! Good hydration, plenty of fibre and movement are the standard recommendations. But if you are struggling, you may need some further support from specific probiotics designed to help this eg. Optibac Bifido and Fibre. Magnesium citrate is a supportive nutrient to encourage regular bowel movements.
4. Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, sprouts (no wonder there’s so many of them at Christmas!) cabbage, bok choy, kale, turnip and watercress, are excellent for liver detox. In fact, there are literally hundreds of studies attesting to the benefits of cruciferous veg, including protection against various types of cancer, from prostate to ovarian and breast through to type 2 diabetes. The mechanism of action is due to the detoxification capability of these remarkable vegetables. Another group of foods to acquire a taste for! If you’re one of those people who isn’t keen on sprouts, try them roasted in the oven with a little olive oil and a little crushed garlic. We’ve tried this on a few sprout phobics and they’ve gone down a treat. Completely changes the flavour.
5. Keep hydrated. May seem obvious but so easy to forget. Did you know that herb teas count towards our hydration? Try and reduce your caffeinated drinks to the morning only and then go for herb teas or water. When drinking alcohol, drink water (not sugary drinks) between alcoholic beverages and go for soda and lime as a mixer.
6. If you find you feel unwell after any amount of certain alcoholic drinks, there are a number of possible reasons for this. You may have an issue with the sulphites in wine and there are a number of sulphite free wines available eg. Sainsbury's organic sulphite free. You may be reacting to the yeast or you may have a specific IgG food intolerance to specific grapes eg. Chardonnay, shiraz and so on. Food intolerance testing can identify if this is a problem. Another drink which can be problematic is beer as again we can react to yeast, hops, moulds or barley. Histamine can be a by-product of yeast and bacteria fermentation, hence if you already suffer from allergies some drinks can cause a worsening of symptoms. Certain beers also contain wheat and gluten which can cause problems for the many unsuspecting victims out there who as yet don’t know whether they have a food intolerance. If you do find that you a prone to diarrhoea, headaches, abdominal pain and a worsening of allergic symptoms eg asthma, eczema, migraine etc., it’s quite possible you have either an allergy or food intolerance. This can be identified with a simple pin prick test to make Christmas less miserable as you make choices around this and avoid unnecessary symptoms.
7. Turmeric is one of the most talked about talked about foods for cancer prevention and liver detox. It’s also one of the most researched! We recommend including it in your diet as often as possible, from curries to soups to golden milk which can be made with dairy free if preferred. Wellness Mama has a nice recipe. You can also supplement with turmeric over the season and beyond for cancer prevention.
8. Milk thistle is of course an old favourite and well known amongst the herbal community and functional medicine practitioners. We stock a high strength licensed Milk Thistle that is only available from Practitioners. If you prefer drops we have Vogel’s tincture too. 
9. Perhaps unsurprisingly getting a good night sleep is really important as that is when our bodies rest and repair. While we are asleep our liver and brain are busy detoxifying so it’s really important to get a good night sleep if you have overindulged to give yourself the best chance of recovering.
10. Rest your liver. The British Liver trust recommends a break of a few nights between drinking alcohol allow the liver to properly rest. This does not mean reaching for so called 'soft drinks' as these are also harmful. This means hydrating with water and herb teas. The added sugars and sweeteners in soft drinks lead us on the path to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2880768/

If you would like to know more about how to support yourself this festive period pop in and have a chat. If you are taking any medication please do give us a call to check drug/nutrient interactions before taking any of the above supplements.