The liver plays an important role in our body’s digestive system. Everything that we eat or drink, be it our daily food, our supplements or our medicines, has to pass through the liver first to get absorbed by the body. Just like other vital organs of our body, the liver keeps working incessantly to keep us healthy and disease free. With the liver doing so much work for us, it’s of prime importance to take care of it.
According to Rohit Satoskar, MD at MedStar Georgetown Transplant Institute "Liver is an organ you could easily trash if you don't take good care of it." He adds, "And once you trash it, it's gone."
The liver measures almost equal to a football and is held safely under the right ribcage. The liver needs to perform a lot of functions such as cleaning blood by filtering out harmful chemicals produced by the body, creating bile juice to break down the fat present in the food we consume, and to store glucose for a rapid energy boost when the body needs it.
Keeping liver healthy is not a daunting task. According to the medical director of the Liver Transplant department at Massachusetts General Hospital, Ray Chung, “There's nothing tricky about keeping your liver in good shape. It's all about a healthy lifestyle”. He says, “Taking care of your liver is far more about avoiding what's bad than it is about eating or drinking things that are particularly nourishing to the liver.”
Let’s take a look at some tips to keep our liver healthy the natural way:
Say No To Excessive Alcohol
Your liver takes a toll when it has to process alcohol in large quantities. Alcohol can damage liver cells and may cause scarring, fatty liver, cirrhotic liver, and may even cause fatal diseases. Men should not consume more than two drinks per day, and for women it’s one drink daily.
Don’t Smoke
And just in case you are a regular smoker, try to gradually reduce your cigarettes and stop smoking altogether. It’s an irony how we all know cigarette does not good to our body and still we see a rise in the number of smokers with each passing year. What adds to our dismay is the fact the youngsters are engaging in this unhealthy habit and doing harm to their delicate body. Smoking is not healthy for people of any age, and we need to stop smoking as soon as possible, and motivate non smokes to stay that way.
Healthy Diet
Your liver will thank you for nourishing it with healthy foods. Milk thistle, apples, olives, oranges, lemons, walnuts, wholegrain foods, curcumin (readily available in turmeric), green tea, garlic, ginger, beetroot, carrots, grapefruit; all these fruits and veggies are beneficial for liver’s health.
Routine Exercise
You don’t need to be an Olympic level athlete to have a good and healthy body. Wake up early in the morning, jog in a nearby park and breathe in the fresh morning air. Not only will you lungs feel a lot better, their increased oxygen carrying capacity will also help you in keeping your whole body healthier than usual, liver included.