What Does Your Liver Do for You?

Your liver performs over 2,000 functions for you (Reference: Liver Rescue). This organ is a powerhouse but one that we unfortunately have overburdened and pushed to its limit making it very difficult for it to accomplish all of its important duties, such as detoxification and fat, carbohydrate and cholesterol metabolism. 

A main function of your liver is that it stores nutrients and glycogen (glucose reserves) for future needs. However, a huge problem with our livers is that they have become oversaturated with other substances occupying valuable real estate making it stagnant and sluggish so that it can no longer efficiently process fat. As a result, fat begins to get stored in your liver (setting you up for pre-fatty-liver and then fatty liver disease), other organs, blood vessels, your waistline, etc. This is often why people start to gain weight as they age. 

A congested liver state thickens your blood making your heart have to work harder and thus elevating your blood pressure. Blood LDL cholesterol levels also begins to rise as your liver can no longer appropriately manage them nor can it manufacture good HDL levels. This puts you at risk for a heart attack or stroke if these fat and cholesterol particles start to adhere to your blood vessels. 

The big question though is what is causing your liver to be so strained so that it can no longer effectively break down fat and is storing it in your body instead?

The Problem With Fat

Today’s health narrative is pushing a diet high in fat and protein and to limit sugar/carbohydrates. Nothing could be further from the truth with regards to your health.

In order to protect your liver and thus allow your body to release fat, you need to limit fat (which also usually means certain sources of protein which concurrently are high in fat like meat, dairy, nuts or eggs) and increase your consumption of healthy carbohydrates such as fruits and starchy vegetables like potatoes, sweet potatoes and squash. Non-gluten containing grains such as oats, brown rice, or millet and legumes can be permitted provided they are not bathed in fat such as oil. 

It is important to understand that fat and carbohydrates compete with one another for entry into your cells to serve as an energy substrate. Fat always gets in first and blocks carbohydrates (glucose) from entering. This results in excess glucose levels in your blood necessitating your pancreas to produce more insulin to then store the glucose as either glycogen or fat. Meanwhile, the fat that is now in your cells, while it can serve as an energy substrate, is not ideal nor yields as much energy compared to glucose.

Your cells primarily run on glucose. Your brain only runs on glucose. Thus you need to primarily feed it glucose. Therefore, if glucose can’t get into your cells because fat is there, your cells can become starved of glucose. This also negatively impacts your energy, mood and cognitive function. 

Most of us have no idea how much fat we are actually consuming and what an ideal amount is. We recommend no more than 15% of your daily caloric intake be fat. On a 2000 calorie diet, this equates to no more than 33 g/fat per day. To give you even more perspective on how this works out in the real world see below.

It is suggested you carefully analyze how many grams of fat you are actually consuming/day. You may be regularly eating a big salad which is wonderful but if it’s loaded with an oil based salad dressing, nuts, seeds, egg, meat and/or avocado you could be tipping the scale too far.

When people consume baked goods such as cookies or cakes they often say, “Oh, I had so much sugar.” However, they are completely missing the fact that they also just consumed a ton of fat in combination with sugar. 

Animal fats stick around longer in your bloodstream than plant based ones so generally speaking, we recommend trying to source your fat more from plants than animals. For example, pork fat can take around 16 hours vs avocado fat about 3 hours to dissipate. However, as exhibited above, even plant based fat can be significantly high. Thus, individuals on plant based diets can often be consuming too much fat which is negatively impacting their liver’s health and contributing to liver congestion.

The Long-term Impact of Toxins

Around the same time women began reporting widespread symptoms like hot flashes, fatigue, and brain fog in the 1950s, two significant toxin related developments were also unfolding. First, radiation exposure in the U.S. had increased due to nuclear fallout from the World War II bombings in Japan. Second, DDT—a powerful pesticide—was being used extensively. By the 1940s, DDT was sprayed on crops, in parks, in residential gardens, and even directly on people. By 1950, its use had peaked, overwhelming the central nervous systems and livers of countless women.

If you eat a diet low in fat and still have weight gain, elevated cholesterol, high blood pressure, menopause symptoms, or other health issues underlying toxins in your liver could be a root cause. There are SO MANY potential sources of toxins in our world. The major ones are:

• Heavy metals
• Pharmaceuticals
• Pesticides/Herbicides/Insecticides
• Radiation
• Plastics
• EMF
• Perfumes
• Scented candles
• Mold
• Cleaning products
• Personal care products
• Gasoline
• Burning trash

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 2021 data, approximately 64.8% of adults (aged 18 years and older) in the United States took at least one prescription medication in the past 12 months. Many people are on multiple pharmaceuticals and have been on them for many years. 

Medications have to be processed by your liver and if your liver can’t succeed at this, it will end up storing the medication itself taking up valuable liver real estate and contributing to its congestion. Therefore, if you take any medication long term, this can impact your liver and make you more susceptible to menopause issues. 

Pharmaceutical products not only contain the active ingredients (which are a potential source of toxicity in themselves) but also known and unknown (because it's a byproduct of the manufacturing process) inactive toxic ingredients such as heavy metals (ex: lead, mercury, aluminum, cadmium, arsenic, etc). 

Heavy metal contamination is rampant in our world. Potential sources besides pharmaceuticals include:

• Air fresheners, scented candles, perfumes, colognes and fabric softeners
• Tattoo ink
• Toothpaste
• Coffee or tea 
• Tap water
• Pots and pans, metal cookware
• Aluminum cans and foil
• Batteries
• Old paint
• Pesticides, insecticides and herbicides (even on organic food)
• Cosmetics
• Hair salons
• Dental work (mercury fillings removal, new fillings, fluoride treatments, retainers, braces)
• Grilled food or other cookouts
• Smoke from burning substances of unknown origin
• Time spent outdoors during or after firework displays 

Many people have no idea that the cologne they wear, the candles they burn and the products they use to clean their bodies and homes are toxic. Furthermore, it is critical to understand that toxins and pathogens can get passed on from generation to generation through conception and while in the womb. This landmark study (Body Burden: The Pollution in Newborns), found an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants in umbilical cord blood from 10 babies born in August and September of 2004 in U.S. hospitals. Tests revealed a total of 287 chemicals in the group. The umbilical cord blood of these 10 children, collected by the Red Cross after the cord was cut, harbored pesticides, consumer product ingredients and wastes from burning coal, gasoline and garbage.

Therefore, a child entering the world is already burdened with toxins in addition to whatever else they will end up being exposed to throughout their lifetime. Unfortunately, with each generation this amount is growing. This is a big reason why we are seeing increasing chronic health issues in our children.

Spend a moment reflecting on this list, which isn’t even complete as there are even more industrial sources of toxicity out there of which we aren’t even aware of, and consider how much exposure you have had throughout your life and currently to these substances. Think about what toxins you might have received from your parents and their exposure history leading up to your conception and birth.

Pathogens Hide in Your Liver

In addition to fats and toxins, the presence of chronic pathogens in your liver can be taking up valuable space and energy making it challenging for your liver to metabolize fat, keep your blood clean and fend off menopausal symptoms.

Pathogens thrive off toxins and consume them producing neurotoxins and dermatoxins that can irritate your nervous system and skin.

Just like toxins, pathogens can also get passed along from generation to generation. This can happen during conception (from paternal semen and/or maternal egg), in-utero, labor, delivery, breastfeeding (maternal exposure) and regular close family contact for easy transmission between family members.

The most common pathogens present and causing a chronic level of stress and inflammation in our bodies include the herpes family viruses such as Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and Herpes Simplex 1 through 8. Chronic strep is also a major issue which over the years of being exposed to antibiotics, has mutated into stealth type strep strains of which many are resistant to pharmaceutical antibiotics. If you would like to learn more about how chronic pathogens could be impacting your health, refer to this article.

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a major but often overlooked contributor to symptoms commonly associated with menopause. Many of the first women to report menopause symptoms had been born in the early 1900s, around the time EBV began to spread more widely. Typically contracted in childhood, EBV can lie dormant in the body for decades, gradually weakening the thyroid, liver, and nervous system before symptoms emerge—often around midlife. For example, a woman born in 1905 who contracted EBV early in life might begin experiencing symptoms around 1950, coinciding with the onset of menopause. This timing led to the widespread yet mistaken belief that menopause itself was to blame. Today, faster-mutating strains of EBV are surfacing much earlier, causing similar symptoms in women as young as their twenties. As a result, many are being misdiagnosed with perimenopause or thyroid disorders, leading to ineffective treatments, emotional distress and a false sense of premature aging.

The Epstein-Barr virus not only camps out in your liver but also tends to live in your thyroid. If you have been diagnosed with a thyroid condition such as Hashimoto’s, hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism chances are it’s being driven by Epstein-Barr. This in turn will negatively impact your metabolism. Furthermore, long term use of thyroid medication can accumulate in your liver and contribute to its toxic load. Thus, if your thyroid is a factor in your menopause symptoms, the real solution is to work on reducing its Epstein-Barr viral load coupled with detoxifying your liver.