The liver is usually not very high on the list of body parts that people stress a lot about when it comes to prevention of diseases. It usually gets the attention it deserves after something goes wrong.
However, the liver is a very important organ in your body, responsible for filtering of the blood coming from the digestive tract and detoxifying chemicals, so it can cause a lot of health problems when not functioning properly. So here are six important things you should be careful about for the sake of your liver:
1. Alcohol
When it comes to liver problems, we’re obliged to start with alcohol. We all know that heavy drinking can damage the liver, but exactly how much is too much? You don’t have to a seasoned alcoholic in order to overdo it with the booze. If you often drink a lot and you do this for a long time, expect a slow but steady deterioration of your liver.
This doesn’t mean that you’re not supposed to drink alcohol at all – it means that you should practice a greater control over the amount of your drinking. Moderation in all things is the key to good health.
2. Sugar
If you didn’t already have enough reasons to eliminate sugary drinks and foods with added sugars from your diet, here’s another one. The high intake of sugar is an enemy to your health on so many levels it almost hurts when you merely think of it. Among other things, studies have shown that drinking a lot of soft drinks is linked with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Sugar (more specifically fructose) is the compound from which your liver makes fat. A regular consumption of too much refined sugar and high-fructose foods can create a damaging fatty buildup in the liver.
3. Being overweight
Did you know that alcoholism isn’t the only way to develop cirrhosis? If you have a lot of excess body fat, it can build up in your liver cells, causing your liver to swell and leading to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Then the swollen liver can harden and scar the liver tissue.
A proper diet, adjusted to your nutrition needs and lifestyle, will get you a long way in terms of health and fat loss. And a diet high in trans fats, the ‘bad’ type of fats that can be found in almost all processed foods (they’re listed as “partially hydrogenated“ on the back of the product) will most definitely lead to weight problems. It’s never to late to switch to a healthier lifestyle, lose a few extra pounds and prevent liver disease and many other disorders from happening.
Continues on page 2 ->