When I was a boy (a very short time ago), we would go camping and sit around the camp fire and tell 'scary' stories. While we were enveloped within the darkness of midnight we would try to drum up the scariest stories known to mankind. The sparks of the flagging flames of the fire would lap into the air while the eerie unnatural sounds of the woods surrounded us as we gathered together to listen to these stories of horror and death. For me, one of the scariest stories was the tale about the man who had lost his 'liver' and now was roaming the woods in search of 'getting his liver back'! Though I don't remember the exact way he lost his liver, nor did I understand that he could never live without a liver...as a young boy, this story had me shivering in the coolness of the night, desperately trying to peer past the brightness of the flaming campfire as I searched the perimeter of our campsite for the phantom man of horrors as he walked around screaming, "I want my liver back!"
The last few days I have endeavored in my own journey to 'get my liver back'. No, it wasn't cut out in some horrific operation nor have I lost my liver's ability to function. But unbeknown to many of us, and to the detriment of our very own health, we may have a liver, yet it is probably not functioning at its full capacity. Since we only have one liver and this organ has over a hundred different functions within the human body, one would think its role would be of an utmost importance for all of us to understand. How many of us really understand the necessity of our livers? Do you know the role it plays within the metabolism and systems of our bodies?
It seems many of us have 'lost our livers' and we don't even know it! Whether we believe it or not...see it or not...understand it or not, we are living in a world of toxins. Yes, sorry to say, because of the 'love of money' which is the root of ALL evil, our world is becoming more and more toxic with every passing day. The world has become a cesspool of toxins. Compared to life one hundred years ago, most every step of our life is inundated with some type of known or unknown toxic chemical. The air we breath is loaded with toxins. The water we drink is loaded with toxins. The homes we live in are loaded with toxins. The cars we drive in are loaded with toxins. The foods we eat are loaded with toxins. There is no escaping the quagmire of toxins our bodies come into contact on a daily basis. The days of the log cabin in the woods and stepping out to take a breath of fresh clean air, are but a distant historical memory.
So what does this have to do with my liver? Well...pretty much quite everything! The liver is the master organ for creating optimal nutrition for all the 50 trillion cells in your body. The liver is the body's largest organ, weighing three to five pounds in adults. It uses 12 - 20% of the body's total energy, and it must generate this energy to it's own cells. The liver routinely performs over 500 known functions to regulate your cell's metabolism. It is the "alchemical wizard" of the body, transforming toxins into harmless chemicals for excretion, and digestively absorbed nutrients into the proper biochemical forms your cells can use to function. Yet the liver is probably the organ most assaulted by toxic modern lifestyles, full of pollution, stress, junk foods, drugs, etc. In the US 40000 deaths a year are due to liver disease. Yet most people will never suffer from hepatitis, cirrhosis, or jaundice, the "classic" liver diseases. Toxic modern lifestyles may however promote "subclinical" liver disfunction. No matter how good your diet and digestion, if your liver does not perform its many jobs properly, your cells can still be grossly malnourished. Optimal nutrition is a function, not just of what we eat and digest, but of how well the liver bio-transforms incoming food nutrients into forms that the bloodstream can transport to all the body's cells, and that the cells can use to perform their metabolic functions.
In a nutshell, like the oil filters on our automobiles, our livers function as a major filter in our bodies and more importantly, our livers function as the filter of our blood. When we come into contact with a toxin...whether the toxin is the air, land, water, or our food, somewhere down the road, our liver is going to have to filter this toxin out of our body. Our livers must transform a toxin into something 'safe' and escort out of the body as a waste product. It should be easy to see, if we lose our livers ability to function within its optimal strength, our entire body will feel it.
Since we live in a very toxic world, all of us inevitably are dealing with this problematic issue of over worked and lethargic livers. It seems, almost by default, all of us have 'lost our livers' to world gone wild in the use of highly toxic and man made chemicals. The sad thing, is many of us may have 'lost our livers' and we don't even know it yet! In part two of "I Want My Liver Back", I will discuss how we can do just that...'GET OUR LIVERS BACK'!!!
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