DETOX Your Liver

GOOD NEWS! A customized approach tailored to your body will help you reboot a sluggish liver and shed unwanted pounds-no deprivation required!

- KRISTINA MASTROCOLA

What do your liver and a TSA agent have in common? They're both gatekeepers, according to dietitian Kristin Kirkpatrick, coauthor of Regenerative Health: Discover Your Metabolic Type and Renew Your Liver for Life. "Everything that comes into the body has to go through the liver before it can be utilized somewhere else," she says. From breaking down fat, carbs and protein to detoxifying the body, the liver has more jobs than Ryan Seacrest. Not surprisingly, it plays a key role in metabolic health by regulating blood glucose levels and warding off diabetes and cardiovascular disease, while helping keep our weight in check.

For such a vital vital organ, we're not as educated as we should be when it comes to keeping our liver healthy, says gastroenterologist Ibrahim Hanouneh, M.D., Kirkpatrick's co-author. But liver problems are a major issue. "One in four people, mainly in the West, has fatty liver, owing to our highly processed diet, and it's a silent disease, with no symptoms until it's too late," he says, adding that most people are surprised to learn they even have it.

"When patients come into the clinic, they often think, 'Why am I seeing a liver doctor? I've never had a problem with alcohol," says Dr. Hanouneh. Yet the new leading cause of cirrhosis and liver transplantation has nothing to do with alcohol. Instead it's nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which occurs when healthy tissue is replaced by fat cells due to an excess of sugar and carbs. Kirkpatrick has also seen a concerning gap in knowledge on the topic: "In my role as a dietitian, a lot of people tell me, 'My doctor says I have something called fatty liver disease, and I was told to see you,' with no guidance whatsoever on how to reverse it."

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