This article is about what methods can restore and improve the liver: medical nutrition, medications, procedures.
The idea of cleansing the body of toxins, especially cleansing the liver, has recently gained great popularity. Traditional medicine offers a variety of methods and means of "cleansing the liver", often quite exotic, in pharmacies you can find many medications, and even more dietary supplements that promise to cleanse, restore and improve liver function. At the same time, professional physicians for the most part are critical of both these funds and the very expression “clean the liver”. So how can you take care of this important body, why and who needs it, and what successes should be expected?
The role of the liver in maintaining the health of the body is huge. In addition to participating in digestion, it synthesizes vitamins, carbohydrates, fats, enzymes and biologically active substances, participates in hematopoiesis and stops bleeding, synthesizes and removes cholesterol, neutralizes about 90% of medications taken internally. Alcohol, nicotine, infections - all these strokes the liver takes on.
If you regularly abuse fatty foods, smoked meats, alcoholic beverages, do not follow a diet, smoke, often have to take medications, and are overweight, then you should think about the state of your liver.
If you force the main filter of the body to work "for wear and tear", over time this will lead to the fact that the liver cells - hepatocytes - begin to break down, and it will not be able to fully perform its functions. This can be manifested by heaviness and discomfort in the right hypochondrium, a touch on the tongue and bitterness in the mouth, especially in the morning, the occurrence of frequent problems with skin and hair. To make up for the loss of hepatocytes, you first need to give the liver the opportunity to rest and recover, and secondly, provide the appropriate “building material”.
So, if you decide to take care of the liver, your first and main step is diet. Alas, without any nutrition restrictions, no “magic” pills will help you. As a basis, take the classic treatment table No. 5 (according to the official medical classification), used for chronic liver diseases. Your task is to eliminate fatty, fried, smoked dishes - that is, those that give the maximum load on the liver. Refrain from black coffee, alcoholic beverages and try to eat food in small portions 4-5 times a day. After 2-3 weeks of such a “rest” for the liver, you will feel and see the result - the skin will become cleaner, you will feel better, a pleasant bonus will be the loss of a few extra pounds.
There will be much more benefit for the liver if you take essential phospholipid preparations at the same time as medical nutrition. This is the very “building material” from which new liver cells will be built. In pharmacies you can find both imported and domestic drugs of this group: Essentiale, Essliver, Phosphogliv and others.
Numerous dietary supplements for cleansing the liver: tablets, drops, teas, mainly contain components of plant origin that have a mild choleretic and, to a lesser extent, anti-inflammatory effect. These are most often extracts of sandwort immortelle, artichoke, mint, tansy, corn stigmas. They are good as an addition to therapeutic nutrition, especially with signs of stagnation of bile. The active ingredient of the extract of milk thistle - silymarin, has hepatoprotective properties, its products protect liver cells from destruction, increase the efficiency of their work.
To clean the liver and gall bladder, eliminate stagnation of bile, a procedure called dubage is also used. There are several options for its implementation, but the meaning remains unchanged: you need to take a drug with a choleretic effect and lie down, providing heat to the liver area. Dubbing is a rather specific method, which is transferred by different people differently, and for a number of diseases (for example, cholelithiasis) it is strictly contraindicated. In any case, if you want to make dubbing, consult with your doctor in advance.
