← DR. GUNDRY PODCAST: GUT HEALTH, WEIGHT LOSS, AND NUTRITION
DR. GUNDRY PODCAST: GUT HEALTH, WEIGHT LOSS, AND NUTRITION
5 Worst Things for YOUR Liver Health - Dr. G's Quick Health Tip | EP 381.B
00:21:00
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Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast, where Dr. Steven Gundry shares his groundbreaking research from over 25 years of treating patients with diet and lifestyle changes alone. Dr. Gundry and other wellness experts offer inspiring stories, the latest scientific advancements, and practical tips to empower you to take control of your health and live a long, happy life.
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First of all, let's talk about your liver. You hear all over the Internet that the liver is the main detoxification center of your body. And while it is true that the liver does have detoxification enzymes, there's level one and level two enzymes, the liver is far more important as a detoxification center than you think. Here's the real deal with liver. The liver actually is the gateway to your body. For all the foods that you absorb from your intestines. That's right. All the proteins that you absorb as amino acids, all the sugars that you absorb as either glucose or fructose have to go through the liver first. In the liver, there are literally checkpoints, security guards that scan everything that's coming from the intestines, make sure that there aren't any troublemakers mixed in with the crowd. And if there are troublemakers, literally stop them, frisk them, or arrest them. And this is all done without you even feeling it or knowing it. Once that checkpoint is passed, then they're released into the main vein, going to your heart, and then pumped around the body. But everything that comes from the gut has to pass through the liver for this checkpoint. Now, you see a lot of news that detox diets help your liver. Quite frankly, nothing could be more wrong with that concept. When you do a fruit cleanse, for instance, fruit contains fructose, as I've written about in the Energy Paradox and in Gut Check, fructose is a toxin. Fructose is taken directly to the liver that does not go into your bloodstream, where it is detoxified by your liver into both triglycerides, a fat, and uric acid. Some of you know uric acid from gout, that painful swelling of a big toe, or from kidney stones, uric acid stones. So these are products of the detoxification of fructose. Why would you want to detoxify fructose? Because fructose is a mitochondrial poison. It's also a kidney poison. So your liver has to work double hard to detoxify your detoxification diet when you're having your fruit smoothies. So if you want your liver to not work very hard, please don't give it the thing. It has to work hardest to detoxify. And that's fructose. That's your fruit smoothie. Now, the second thing you may have seen on the Internet is the Centers for Disease Control just came out with some warnings that very popular supplements like green tea extract, turmeric and borage oil can be harmful to the liver in excess. While that is possible, quite frankly, since I look at liver enzymes, specific liver enzymes in my patients every three to six months and have a number of patients who take green tea extract drink a lot of green tea like I do take borage oil for hot flashes. Remarkably, I have never in 25 years seen a problem with liver enzymes from these compounds. On the other hand, not a week goes by that I don't see liver damage from a high fructose diet, from a high smoothie diet. So I'd much rather you drink green tea or take a turmeric supplement than have a fruit smoothie. Third most common mischief maker that I see in my practice in terms of liver health is binge drinking. Now, I often tell my patients, you could bathe your liver in alcohol all day and you won't develop cirrhosis. However, you can easily damage your liver by the drinking the effects of alcohol rapidly. Why is that? Well, alcohol is also a toxin. And the toxicity of alcohol actually comes from the fact that it damages the lining of your gut. And in damaging the lining of your gut, it makes intestinal permeability, AKA leaky gut. What happens when you have leaky gut is that bacterial particles, or actually living bacteria, can then escape through the wall of the gut. And guess where they go? If you've been following your right, they have to go to the liver first. They have to get back past those checkpoints in the liver. And as the bacteria come up to the liver, there is actually a battle between your white blood cells in the liver and these bacteria. And that battle actually causes scar tissue to form and it actually kills liver cells, hepatocytes, and we can measure the effect of that battle going on with these liver enzymes. So, as strange as it seems, it's not the effect of alcohol on the liver that's the problem. It's the effect of concentrated binge alcohol on the lining of the gut that releases the bacteria, that then the warfare and damage in the liver occurs. So that's why study after study, particularly of Europeans and Japanese, who consume wine or sake on a daily basis, multiple times per day with meals, don't show that effect of alcohol. Whereas we see now, particularly in our college students, the profound damaging effect of a weekend of binge drinking where a lot of concentrated alcohol is consumed over a short period of time. A glass of red wine a day. Okay. A vodka pitcher a weekend, not so bueno. That's the difference between the two. And oh, by the way, studies have been done comparing drinking red wine, drinking the equivalent amount of grape juice that doesn't have any alcohol in it, and the equivalent calories of gin on the gut microbiome of humans. And lo and behold, the red wine actually had the best effect on improving the diversity of the gut microbiome. The grape juice was second. And sorry to report the gin was detrimental to the biodiversity of your gut microbiome. When we think about alcohol, we actually have to think about the type of alcohol that's being delivered. Here's one that may surprise you, but I used to see it all the time when I was an emergency room physician. Excessive Tylenol use Acetaminophen. Acetaminophen in high doses is very damaging to the liver. It was really good at killing liver cells. And we see well meaning people thinking that oh, Tylenol is the pain reliever that we give in hospitals, which is true. Tylenol is the fever reducer that we give in hospitals, which is true. So if Tylenol is used in hospitals, it must be safe because otherwise why would we use it in hospital? Problem with Tylenol is if used to excess, if trying to reduce pain, if trying to reduce a fever, it can be very damaging to the liver. So what do we do when we see Tylenol toxicity in the emergency room?
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Heading into the new year.
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We actually give you N acetylcysteine nac.
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Now, you may have heard of NAC because it is a popular supplement. A couple years ago, believe it or not, the FDA banned NAC from sale on Amazon and other sites because they had declared 70 years ago that N acetylcysteine was a drug and not a supplement because we used it as a drug for acetaminophen poisoning. After a couple of years, the FDA realized that that was silly, that it is actually a supplement. And you may have noticed that NAC came back on the market. So the proviso here is, if you are a Tylenol user, you really should consider taking one or two doses of NAC, about 500 milligrams each time, as a way of preventing the toxicity of acetaminophen on your liver. A similar compound exists in Europe called paracetamol. They're cousins. So if you're listening, in Europe, paracetamol is the same problem as acetaminophen or Tylenol. Now, let me tell you some sad stories about colloidal silver. Many of you heard that silver, colloidal silver is a really cool antibacterial compound. And I have a lot of experience with silver as an antibacterial compound. When I was researching at Loma Linda University, we got the smart idea that if we put in valves in patients, they have the potential because they have a sewing ring that's made out of fabric. That sewing ring has the potential to get infected with bacteria. And quite frankly, getting infection on an artificial heart valve is a disaster. We usually have to emergently operate on someone and take that valve out. We can't sterilize it with antibiotics. Knowing that silver was an incredibly useful compound for killing bacteria, a valve company asked us to try a silver impregnated sewing ring in animals. And it actually worked very well. So well that other studies at other institutions also showed the same thing. And so the FDA approved a silver impregnated sewing ring for valve implantation. Lo and behold, it didn't get infected. But normally, when we put a valve in somebody, that sewing ring, it's covered up by your own tissue growing into it, healing it. What we learned very shortly is the silver in that sewing ring prevented normal tissue from growing, not just bacteria. And so people actually develop blood clots on these sewing rings, which was unheard of prior to using this. And thankfully, those sewing Rings are no longer on the market. But that taught me a very valuable lesson, that silver is really good against bacterial growth. But here's the bad news. Silver is really bad for normal cell growth as well. So if you're one of those persons who think silver is the antidote to everything that ails you, let me assure you that's not the way to go. You don't drink the stuff. Please. Now, putting some colloidal silver on a cut is just fine, but you're probably far better off by using a topical antibiotic like Neosporin or polymyxin B, which have been shown in clinical trials to speed healing of cuts and abrasions. Stay away from drinking silver. I do have one patient who became a blue man. I'm sure you've heard of them. He literally turned blue from drinking his colloidal sulfur. And he's still blue, sadly. Now, the good news is those valves that were put in were exchanged successfully, and the vast majority of the valves didn't have to be changed. But it was discovered in the valves that needed changing. That was the silver that was preventing the normal ingrowth. So there's something to think about when you're thinking about silver. Now, are there a few supplements that can actually help the liver? Well, the main objective in helping the liver, believe it or not, is increasing type 1 and type 2 detoxification enzymes. And there's another number of supplements that have shown that that works. One of the granddaddies of liver support is milk thistle. Now, milk thistle is a polyphenol. Milk thistles are cousins of artichokes. And believe it or not, artichoke extract. And artichokes are also very good at increasing type 1 and type 2 detoxification enzymes in the liver. But one of the interesting ways that they work, which we've only recently discovered, is they don't work actively in the liver. What they do is they work by changing the gut microbiome. And it's the change of the gut microbiome that is actually impacting how the liver heals itself. So over and over, over again, over 25 years, I've noticed the really important effects of these polyphenol compounds. Another very interesting compound is D limonene. Now, despite the fact that you hear the word lemon in limonene, it's actually in the peels of oranges. And D limonene and milk thistle and artichoke extract are part of my Gundry MD liver support formula. It also really improves gut bacterial function and liver detoxification. Enzymes. But despite all of this, the real way to protect your liver and detoxify your liver is to prevent these bacterial particles called lipopolysaccharides or LPSs. And as you know, I don't swear, but I can't resist calling them little pieces of shit because that's what they are. Prevent these guys from getting through the wall of the gut Fish oil is incredibly useful to prevent LPSS from getting through the gut. As I've written about in Gut Check, Perilla oil or flaxseed oil is extremely useful in preventing LPSS from getting through the gut. Finally, another great trick is dandelion greens. Luckily, we're seeing dandelion greens in a lot of regular mainstream grocery stores now. They don't taste or look like the dandelion you pull out of your grass, but that's another trick for improving your liver function. The third and most of them, actually probably sixth trick. The more you rest your gut by intermittent fasting by time restricted eating, limiting your eating window to about six to eight hours a day, the more downtime your gut has to repair the damage to the wall of the gut. Just like your brain has to have sleep to repair the damage to your brain. To wash out the toxins and crud in your brain, your gut has to have downtime to repair. And sadly, the average American is usually eating something or digesting something anywhere from 16 to 18 hours a day. Imagine that. There's not a lot of downtime. Compare that to eating six to eight hours a day. Most of the 24 hours can be done in repair work. That's why intermittent fasting is one of the most potent ways to repair your liver.
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I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast. If you did, please share this with family and friends. You never know how one of these health tips can completely transform someone's life when you take the time to share it with them. There's also the Dr. Gundry Podcast YouTube channel where we have tens of thousands of free health insights that can help you and your loved ones live a long, vital life. Let's do this together.
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