April 2016
How to Use Milk Thistle for Liver Detoxification
As your primary defense against dietary and environmental toxins, your liver is one of the most important organs in your body. Modern society, with its polluted air and chemically loaded food and drinks, can be particularly stressful on the liver.
Milk thistle is a powerful herb with a proven ability to protect, detoxify and rejuvenate your liver. Here’s how to use milk thistle for liver detoxification and the best milk thistle extract to use for a healthy liver.
Your liver is the master chemical processing plant of your body, performing over 300 critical metabolic functions. It converts various compounds into the substances your body needs to function properly and is integral to good health.
Amongst its many responsibilities, your liver deals with the various toxic compounds that you may breathe in through polluted air, ingest in your food, or drink in your water or beverages every day.
Your liver is very good at its job, but it will come as a surprise to no one that our air is getting more polluted, our supermarket foods more loaded with chemical additives and the liquids we drink, like coffee, soda and alcoholic beverages, are full of substances that have to be detoxified by the liver.
An overloaded liver, burdened by too many toxins, can become sluggish, fatty and have difficulties performing its most important functions. Once that starts happening headaches, fatigue, poor skin tone, lowered immune function, gastrointestinal problems and a general lack of energy are just the start of the many and varied health problems that can result.
Many people report a dramatic improvement in a long list of seemingly unrelated health problems once they start taking care of their liver. A healthier diet and more exercise will certainly help, but one of the best ways to begin healing your liver is with a liver detox.
Milk thistle is a proven and potent herb for healing and detoxifying your liver. The compound silymarin found in milk thistle extract has been studied for decades and is now recognized as one of the best supplements for liver health.
Milk thistle and its silymarin are known to have the following benefits for protecting and detoxifying your liver:
Milk Thistle Increases Glutathione Antioxidant Activity
Glutathione is considered the body’s master antioxidant and vital for effective liver functioning. Milk thistle extract has been shown to increase glutathione levels in the liver by up to 35 percent and decrease oxidative stress.
The silymarin in milk thistle has also been observed to increase superoxide dismutase, another one of your body’s most important antioxidant enzymes for combating free radical damage.
