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Podcast 194: Liver Cleanse – Part 2

Further to cleansing discussions, Martin and Scott move on to the liver.

A liver that’s not functioning well is usually clogged-up with hepatic stones. They end up in the gallbladder and can be the size of sand, or the size of your finger.

The liver metabolizes proteins, fats and carbohydrates providing energy and nutrients for the other systems of the body. It creates bile to help emulsify fats making them easier to break down into their fatty-acid components, works to maintain electrolyte (magnesium/calcium and potassium/sodium) levels, is involved in the formation and breakdown of blood and helps to maintain water balance by producing serum proteins.

As a supply office, the liver will provide extra blood on demand in case of a critical situation. It also stores fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K.

As a fuel storage facility, it stores B vitamins, minerals and sugars. The latter are stored as a reserve sugar called glycogen which is meant to be released when blood stores of available glucose become low due to exercise, stress or delayed eating.

Functioning as the major detoxifying organ of the body, the liver is responsible for filtering the blood and removing harmful bacteria and chemicals including the breakdown and elimination of excess hormones. This function of your liver has been dramatically overburdened within the last two generations because of the impact of our polluting technologies and lifestyle habits: unending stress, poor diet, alcohol & drugs and environmental toxins.

Podcast 194: Liver Cleanse – Part 2

SCOTT: Hello, everybody! This is the Life Enthusiast Podcast with Scott Paton and Martin Pytela! Martin, how are you doing today?

MARTIN: I am good! And I am ready for you!

SCOTT: Awesome! Last time we were talking about the importance of cleanses, and we focused on the colon, which is the first place people need to cleanse when they are looking into doing a cleanse, but that is just the beginning of the process, right?

MARTIN: Oh yes! I hope that I’ve impressed you with the images I was showing you before we started recording.

SCOTT: Yes, you were showing me all sorts of things that come out of the liver, and end up in the colon, and then end up in the toilet bowl.

MARTIN: Right? So this is important: the liver that is not functioning well is usually clogged up by what’s known as hepatic stones, or if they end up in the gallbladder, people call them gallbladder stones. Essentially these are hardened bits made of bile and cholesterol and other bits, they can be the size of sand, but they could also be the size of your fingernail. Some are two inches in length, and about a half-inch in diameter. So these things essentially will clog your liver.

SCOTT: So, Martin, first of all, what does the liver do?

MARTIN: Oh, boy! Well, you could be telling me that! The liver is the first organ the food lands in after it leaves the digestive system, the small intestine. When it passes through the villi, it goes right into the bloodstream, into the vena cava, which is the biggest blood vessel in the body, and it goes straight to the liver. So if the digestion is good, if it is all properly digested into individual nutrients, amino acids, and minerals, the liver happily sorts it and assembles it into nutrients that our body needs. But if it is not working properly, then we are in trouble.

SCOTT: So these proteins, fats, and carbohydrates we eat, as they go through the stomach, the liver takes them and turns them into nutrients and energy for everything else in the body, right?

MARTIN: Right. But if it is not good stuff, then we are landing into all kinds of trouble, the liver is slowly clogging up, creating these hardenings, or it could be damaged as a result of an abuse of alcohol, or even by sugar, these things are not good for your liver. There actually isn’t that much of a difference between alcohol and sugar for the liver, you know, it is just just a couple of atoms in a molecule of a difference.

SCOTT: Liver is the major detoxifying organ that filters the blood, it removes harmful bacteria and chemicals, right?

MARTIN: That is correct. Impaired liver functioning will make you toxic. This is where you will see the people who have Hepatitis C, for instance, is an inflammation in the liver, a viral condition that causes the liver function to decline. People who suffer from that are constantly tired, unable to carry out normal metabolic functions, they are just dragging around lifeless, just because the liver is not manufacturing enough energy for the metabolic functions of the body.

SCOTT: So how can we clean it up?

MARTIN: So, we either have the slow cleaning or the fast gleaning. With the slow cleaning, and we talked about this earlier, something like our Strata Flora would be really good. It contains herbs that support your liver gently, like Milk Thistle and Rosemary, those two are well-known for being stimulating to the liver. You can also get herbal tea that contains Milk Thistle, it gently stimulates the liver. We also have Milk Thistle oil. Another plant that does a really good job with the liver is Dandelion Root.

MARTIN: There are all kinds of blends and teas and supplements for the liver on the market, and all of them do something. If you have a mild liver problem, you can work your way out of it with these mild treatments, just gentle, natural, herbal stimulation. One of the foods that help dissolve the hepatic stones, or soften the gallbladder stones, is malic acid. Malic acid is the acid that makes apples sour. You can either drink a lot of apple juice, or apple cider, or you could eat a lot of apples, or you can buy the malic acid supplement and eat that. I guess that would be good prevention, right, they say ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away.’.

SCOTT: Yeah, I was just thinking, that is what we’ve heard for a long time, now we know why!

MARTIN: Apples are really good for us! Who would have thought that the malic acid would be so important for your liver, and for detoxification? But anyway, there is a fast way to detoxification, or I would say the radical way. And we have this described in detail on our website, you can read all about it if you search for anything related to liver problems, specifically under the ‘liver and gallbladder flush,’ we have actually published three different versions of it, so people have the chance to compare notes, and decide which method would be the best for them. There are some more radical ways versus some gentle ones. But the core of this whole process is using magnesium. We can use either magnesium sulfate, like Epsom salts, or magnesium chloride, like in the magnesium bath salts we use from TransDerma Minerals.

MARTIN: Either way, when you take the salt orally in large enough quantities, it will induce a bowel flush, meaning it will completely evacuate your bowel from one end to the other.

SCOTT: So if you are going to do it, make sure you stay home that day.

MARTIN: Oh, yes. Typically, we recommend doing it on a Friday night, assuming that you don’t work Saturday and Sunday, you would stop eating at about lunchtime, and by 2 pm, you start the cleansing process, and completely cleanse out your liver. Then in the evening, you take a fairly sizable dose of about half a cup of olive oil, mixed with lemon juice. That lemon juice is there for taste, to make it palatable because it is not easy to drink half a cup of oil straight. As you drink that oil, it creates essentially a complete panic in the digestive system. The liver and gallbladder receive a signal: “Enormous quantity of fat is coming, guys! Everything you have, just throw it at it.” And because we have done this magnesium prep, all of the areas are clean of debris, and it is loose, relaxed, and open. So the gallbladder dilates and allows all that has been assembled in there to just dump out into the digestive system. Because there is nothing else there, it proceeds right down the tube, so that by morning, when you give yourself another dose of magnesium, out it comes, including these pellets, stones, and whatnot.

This is not consistent. For some people, on their first attempt, they get very little out, maybe some sand, but on their second or maybe third try, it is very effective for the bigger stones. What we are finding, when people talk to us, they often say: “My cleanses number 3, number 6, and number 9, were really big.” So obviously, they do that repeatedly. I guess it needs to be done until all of the passages are flushed, all of the channels are clear. You saw the illustration, I don’t know how to best describe it, but our liver is a big network of little channels, and they could be all plugged up with either small, sand-sized bits, or bigger-sized stones, depending on the size of the vessel. So all of this is getting squeezed by this process, it is all getting pumped out, pushed out, and cleansed. So when all of this is gone out of your body, you are free of all of the deficient liver function, which is a glorious place to be!

SCOTT: Right! Our blood is going to get cleaner, a lot of the toxins are going to be moving through, leaving our body at that point, right?

MARTIN: Yes, absolutely! These liver flushes are becoming quite popular in America, but it is not for the faint-hearted. Some people get into it really deep, they actually catch whatever they poop out on Saturday morning into a colander, and then probably display that, people show off the stuff that they’ve got. Would you care to describe that?

SCOTT: Actually, it looks like little rocks and they are actually pretty. (giggles) It is hard to imagine these can be in your liver!

MARTIN: We could make jewelry out of them, don’t you think?

SCOTT: Yeah, probably some people! I am looking into it now, and Dr. Cabot’s flush sounds really interesting! Let me describe it: Take some freshly squeezed juice from citrus fruits, like grapefruit, orange, lemon, and limes, to make 11 ounces of juice, it is going to have a slightly sour taste, I would think, which is good, bitter-tasting fruits and vegetables stimulate the flow of bile from the liver and gallbladder. Dilute this juice with about 7 ounces of filtered water now. Finally, grate 1 or 2 cloves of fresh garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon of fresh ginger roots, and then press both in a garlic press to make juice, add this juice to the water and citrus juice mixture. Garlic and ginger are both liver cleansing, and garlic contains sulfur components that the liver requires for detoxification enzymes. 

Now, you pour 11 ounces of cold-pressed, good-quality olive oil into a warm glass. Every 15 minutes you swallow 3 tablespoons of the citrus juice mixture in 3 tablespoons of olive oil, try to relax between these 15-minute intervals. Some people find it beneficial to lie down on the right side, with a hot water bottle over the liver area, which helps to dilate the bile ducts to allow the passage of small stones and sludge from the gallbladder. Others prefer to sit in a warm bath, which dilates bile ducts as well. And then, if you desire it, collect all your bowel actions into a bucket, and when the flush is over, use a colander and run tap water over it. You will probably find many greenish stones, around the size of a lentil or slightly larger. They could even be some large soft stones full of fatty cholesterol. Some people may not want to collect their bowel actions, but they can hear the stones clanging as they land in the toilet bowl. There was the ‘clanging in the toilet bowl’ that kind of got me. (laughing) And you just do that every 15 minutes until…

MARTIN: …until you are done and there is nothing left. It is almost a quart of liquid, so it takes a while to get it all down.

SCOTT: Right, particularly at 6 tablespoons every 15 minutes.

MARTIN: Right. And you can see there is an alternative method on the same page, it starts with drinking a quart of organic unsweetened apple juice every day for 5 days, that is the malic acid, and on day 6, you skip the dinner, and take a tablespoon of Epsom salt with 3 glasses of water, and you do that again 2 hours later, and then 2 more hours later, now it is 10:00 pm probably, you make 4 ounces of olive oil with 4 ounces of lemon juice, shake it and drink it.

SCOTT: And the next morning you will be amazed at what happens…

MARTIN: Yeah, the crap comes up. Anyway, that is the flush. For people who have a good reason to believe that their gallbladder is in trouble, or their liver is not functioning properly, or they’ve had difficulty digesting fats, or they have eaten an excessive amount of deep-fried foods, or they have been on a ‘sugar-addict diet,’ all of these things create a state of illness in the liver. So that pretty much includes everybody to a degree, I would say.

SCOTT: I would say so. We all need it, I bet we all would be amazed at just how much would come out if we let it.

MARTIN: So, Scott, maybe you and I should make a video of doing this together! (laughing)

SCOTT: (laughing) Yeah.

MARTIN: We will bring each other’s stones to a party.

SCOTT: (laughing) Could you imagine going to meetings with people, and they have this really nice necklace with green stone around it and someone being like: “Oh, that is really nice, where did you get this amazing necklace?” And you would be like: “Those are all the little liver stones that I passed a couple of weeks ago!”

MARTIN: Yes! Anyway, let me repeat it, this is not for the faint-hearted, but so I am starting to guess that anybody who is listening to our 194th episode cannot be faint-hearted.

SCOTT: Nope, that is right. Tell me, what are some of the advantages of having a strong liver? I know I had hepatitis, and my liver wasn’t working for quite a while, and my energy level was non-existent.

MARTIN: Right, that is the first thing that you notice if your liver is not functioning well, it doesn’t produce glycogen, which is the energy, so of course, you are always tired.

SCOTT: And how many people in our society are always tired, right?

MARTIN: Here are some interesting symptoms of poor liver function: red, inflamed, conjunctiva and sclera. That would be red eyes, conjunctivitis, and all of that. That is interesting, would you have ever expected that watery, painful feeling and sand-like sensation in the eyes, and blurred vision, and film over the eyeballs, and gunk in the corners of the eyes, are all signs of liver imbalance? How about that? Then there is the limited flexibility, in knees, shoulders, hips, and other joints. Aching joints upon waking in the morning, and even arthritis. Nails – split, flaking, pale, brittle… that is all liver disharmony stuff. And headaches, migraines, bright apples of the cheeks, redness in the face, that is a sign of poor liver function as well!

SCOTT: So, obviously, lots of young people have a problem with their liver!

MARTIN: Yes! Also acne, psoriasis, eczema.. and hot flashes! You know when the woman’s hormonal system starts going off, it produces excess estrogen. Estrogen is supposed to be disassembled, or taken apart, by the liver. But if the liver doesn’t have the spare capacity to do that, then the excess estrogen remains in the system, and hence the hot flash.

SCOTT:Another aspect of the liver that I didn’t realize was that it is the major fat-burning organ in the body, it regulates fat metabolism. So it can pump out excess fat out of the body, through the bile, and into the small intestine. So you should have a high fiber diet for that to actually work. Obesity is a major problem as well that we have in today’s society.

MARTIN: That is right. Next, we have emotions, anger, aggressive outbursts, you are mad at the whole world, those are all liver function issues. If you are short-tempered, nervous, easy to upset, irritable, lacking determination, and then depleted sexual desire, the fishy-smelling discharge of the vagina. You can go to our website and read all the details if you are interested, this is such a complex topic. I don’t need to read it for you, you can read it for yourself. These are well-researched articles with reference pages, carefully selected from sources that are reliable.

SCOTT: Yes, please, visit our website for more info! I think we have come to the end of this episode, Martin, and we have created a very bile-filled, vivid picture for everybody! If somebody wants to read more of the articles, where should they go?

MARTIN: It is all on www.life-enthusiast.com, everything is described there, and the liver cleanses and gallbladder flush are described there in detail as well for you to try.

SCOTT: And if somebody wanted to speak with you specifically about their issues, what could they do?

MARTIN: Call me, I am always on the phone! My number is (866) 543 3388. Call us! And also, please, give us some input on these podcasts. Sometimes we wonder if people are listening, or paying attention, or finding it too tame or too offensive. We need some input from people who are listening, there are hundreds of these episodes being heard every month. So come on folks, give us some feedback!

SCOTT: There you go! I totally agree! So, thank you, everybody, for listening, this was the Life Enthusiast Podcast, restoring vitality to you and to the planet! See you next time!

Note: the information provided are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult with your medical professional(s) if you are dealing with a specific medical issue.