1 Cup of This Drink Can Start to Reverse Fatty Liver
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If you can drink 1 cup of the beverage I'm going to talk about today, you can start to reverse fatty liver disease fast. And today I'm going to also walk you through the 7 signs your liver's struggling and the exact food, herbs, and lifestyle to start to heal your liver. Listen, your liver is a really big deal because it balances your hormones. We know fatty liver disease in particular increases your risk of death. It's tied to all kinds of health issues.
Today I'm going to talk about exactly step by step naturally how to reverse it. So this month, a study came out of Oregon Health and Science University, and this was done looking at nurses and health professionals. And here's what they looked at. Okay, so they looked at the health professionals who ate after dinner. All right, so they ate dinner and they continued to maybe snack, maybe they had some nuts or ice cream or something after dinner.
Those people had 20 to 30% higher rates of fatty liver disease and cirrhosis, even after accounting for weight and calories and even things like alcohol. And four in ten American adults already have a fatty liver, and most of them feel fine, and most of them don't know that. But think about that: forty percent of adult Americans today have fatty liver disease, and some of them feel fine, or some of them just are feeling sluggish. They have extra weight they've put on. They just overall feel like they're aging too quickly.
Their pants are just a little tighter around the midsection, or maybe there is a dull. Fullness under the right ribs, okay, or a sense of that bloating. That's a warning sign of fatty liver. And another big warning sign in blood work is that your blood sugar is creeping up. Maybe your energy is going more up and down throughout the day.
These are all warning signs you have fatty liver. And for many people, their labs come back normal, but there's still an issue. So today I'm going to walk you through the 7 warning signs and how to know if you have fatty liver. I'll go through the 4 things you need to do in order to turn it around and reverse fatty liver disease. I'll also go through the cup, the beverage that you want to drink every morning to start to reverse fatty liver disease and so much more.
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I'm excited for many of you to win free prizes. By the way, the only way you can be signed up in these is if you are subscribed to the podcast. The giveaway ends December 14th, and we'll announce the winners on December 22nd. Make sure to subscribe and leave a review so you can be entered to win. So there are 4 stages of fatty liver disease.
Okay. It starts off with having a healthy liver. And when you actually look at the liver, the liver is this sort of bright reddish pink color, mostly bright, leaning more bright red. And that's what it looks like. Now, what happens in fatty liver is you have fat and it's sort of this yellowish color of this adipose tissue, this visceral fat.
That's very deadly starts to build up all around the liver and become part of the liver. So you have that, and then what happens along with that is then it becomes very inflamed. Okay, you get inflammation. So the liver actually becomes red and inflamed with these yellow, uh, you know, these yellow fat deposits all over the liver. And then over time, due to that inflammation, scarring can build up.
Now, scar tissue doesn't function as well as actual liver tissue, so then your liver starts functioning poorly. It can't detoxify as well, can't balance hormones as well, can't cleanse your blood as well, and then you start feeling really serious effects, and that is harder to reverse. And that's why it's very important if you do have any type of fatty liver disease, you want to start reversing it right now. And by the way, if you've already learned something, Hit the subscribe button. It's the number one thing you can do to support the show, support myself, also support yourself in getting as healthy as possible.
What subscribing does is just allow the videos to pop up more on your feed so you make sure that you're completely aware of the latest things happening in natural medicine. I've got a lot of great people coming on the show here soon. Dr. Mark Hyman, Carrie Underwood, so many more. So if you don't want to miss it, make sure to subscribe. Okay, sign number 1 of fatty liver disease is Fatigue that sleep doesn't fix.
In one study on 156 people with fatty liver confirmed by biopsy, the average fatigue score was 51. In people without fatty liver disease, it was 8. They also walked 1,600 fewer steps per day, they found in this study. But the big thing is fatty liver disease is linked to poor sleep. So if you sleep poorly, and you know you're waking up at night, especially 3:00 AM or so, or can't fall asleep, there's a warning sign that you may have fatty liver disease.
Sign number 2, your waist has been growing. Now, maybe you haven't gained 50 pounds, but maybe it's been 5 pounds, maybe it's been 10 pounds, maybe it's been up to 20, but you're just feeling it right around that midsection. Your jeans have gotten tighter. That fat deep around your middle, it's not just under your skin, it's around your organs. We call that visceral fat.
And liver fat. And in one study, they found when women start to get a waist size over 31.5 inches— now again, there are different heights, different body frames. This is one study, generally speaking, but they found that higher tied to visceral fat and fatty liver. And for men, if their waist got to be over 37 inches. And again, this matters because again, when you start to expand in that midsection, A lot of that tends to be fat that's around your organs.
And again, we call that visceral fat. And I recorded an entire other podcast episode on how to reverse and get rid of visceral fat fast. So after this video, I'd watch that one as well. Sign number 3 of fatty liver is an ache on your right side. Your liver itself has no pain nerves.
Its outer wrap does. So if you start to just feel a sense of fullness right here, Okay, right there at the bottom of the rib cage, in that area, you start to feel more of a sense of fullness in that area, that can actually be swelling of the liver. Now, it's easy to blame on gas, but it's not always that. Just as often, it can be fatty liver. And pay attention if it keeps coming back and you have it on a regular basis.
Sign number 4, look to your skin. If certain areas of your skin, you're getting darker spots, velvety skin and folds around your neck and armpits, or things like new skin tags, That is a big sign. That is a sign of fatty liver. Sign number 5 is blood sugar creeping up. By the way, and this is a direct root cause of fatty liver in the first place.
According to studies, a fasting blood sugar of 100 or more, or an A1C score of 5.7 or more, or triglycerides of 150 or more, any one of those 3, you don't even need all 3. One of any 3 of those is a big warning sign that you have fatty liver. And again, remember, fatty liver is a big deal because it increases your risk of early death. It increases your risk of heart disease. Your body can't detoxify estrogen as well.
So for men, your testosterone is going to drop. For women, major menopausal symptoms you start to have, chronic pain and inflammation. So there are a lot of warning signs around this, and a lot of times people think, well, My blood work didn't show anything, and that's sign number six. Okay, a normal ALT score that isn't actually normal when we look at it in a functional medicine range. Now, you get annual blood work done likely, and doctors are looking to see if your liver is very, very sick to where you have cirrhosis.
But fatty liver disease happens way before that, and ALT is the liver enzyme on your basic blood panel that most people get checked yearly. And a truly healthy ALT is up to 25 for women and up to 33 for men. But many labs don't flag it until it is way, way above those markers. So go back and look at your ALT score. For women, are you below 25?
For men, are you below 33? And according to studies, 1 in 4 people with fatty liver still have completely normal levels of ALT. Of ALT on their blood work. And this is why when you get your blood work done, it's critically important that it gets interpreted from a functional medicine standpoint. Okay, here's sign number 7, the late red flags.
Okay, sign 1 through 6 are early warning signs. Okay, these are the 6 late signs and they can mean the liver is past the early stages. Yellow eyes or skin. So you can see that in people, any sort of yellowish on their skin or eyes means it can be later stages. Very dark urine consistently.
Itching, where you're just itching all the time, you start to itch regularly all the time. Swollen belly or ankles, because again, your liver works with your kidneys to get rid of fluids and balance things out. Bruising more easily, and then confusion or heavy sleepiness. These are all warning signs that you may have later stages of liver disease. Of fatty liver.
Now, I also wanna mention, I think a lot of times people think, well, hey, I can just do a liver flush to fix all this or a 1-week cleanse. The reality is 1-week cleanses don't really fix much and they really don't do that much. Now, listen, I'm a fan of fasting. I do think doing something like a Daniel Fast or certain types of fasts, especially for spiritual reasons, have tremendous benefits. But I would say you want to cleanse your liver every day By the way you eat, by your spiritual mindset, by the foods you take, the supplements you take, by walking.
There are things you can do daily to cleanse your liver, but doing a 1-week liver cleanse typically is not that effective.
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And then I want to mention here the liver connection, and I take this really seriously, of course, with my own mother having cancer twice, other family members and people, so many patients I've treated over the years and still take care of so many cancer patients today, um, in, in my clinic here in Franklin, Tennessee. Now here's the liver connection. Liver cancer cases are on track to nearly double By 2050, and a growing share of them start with fatty liver disease. According to The Lancet medical journal, 60% plus of these cases could be prevented at the very least. And I would say there are many other types of cancer.
Now, of course, we're talking about liver cancer, but, but your liver itself is very tied to cancer, cancer prevention, and healing from cancer because your liver is your body's main organ. For detoxification. So it's very important. So know this too, when you start taking these action steps to reverse fatty liver, you are also greatly decreasing your risk of cancer. You're also helping your hormones balance better.
You are helping your body in every way possible. And I would say the biggest threat to your liver for most people is actually not, you know, bad fats or seed oils or too much saturated fat, even though a lot of bad fat Can make your liver sick. Okay? I want to be clear about that. That can be too much.
The single biggest driver, though, is sugar. Okay? So it's sugar in, fat out, in terms of what's produced and created when we're talking about fatty liver disease. And so you really, really want to look at 2 things: cutting back on the excess sugar and cutting back on bad fats, or just too much of even certain types of good fats that are saturated. So I would say ranking order, number 1, get— you want to lower and get rid of sugar.
Now listen, fruit is amazing. That's going to help heal your liver. Blueberries and apples, fantastic. But you want to cut the processed sugar. You want to cut these seed oils.
And you also want to cut really high saturated fats for a period of time, like butter and tallow and high animal fats. And you want to switch over to extra virgin olive oil as your main go-to oil across the board. And in addition to those things, here are the biggest needle movers you can do to reverse fatty liver disease. Number 1, stop drinking sugar. Okay, so I said stop eating sugar, right?
The sugar that you eat, but stop drinking it as well. Everything from fruit juice to the sugar you add to your coffee in the morning to whatever it is, but stop drinking sugar. It's the single worst thing you could do. Number 2, close the kitchen after dinner. Let's say you eat at 6:00 PM.
Okay? And actually, the earlier you eat dinner, the better. But after dinner, you typically want about a 3-hour time period before you then go to bed. So eat at 6:00, go to bed at 9:00, maybe 10:00, but do not eat again after dinner. Again, first thing I went through, that greatly increases your risk of fatty liver disease and increasing visceral fat.
Number 3, pause alcohol for 8 weeks or drink a lot less. Listen, One glass of red wine once a week, probably not much of an issue for most people, but generally alcohol is very, very hard on the liver and absolutely in a big way contributes to fatty liver disease. Now, let's start going through exactly how to start to reverse fatty liver disease. So again, it starts with what we talked about, getting rid of these things causing it in the first place. But then what we want to do is— this is important to know.
Your liver can't just dump and get rid of fat. It needs a nutrient called choline to get the fat out. And without enough choline, the fat stays put. So you want to eat foods rich in choline and get choline. Sometimes choline is found in very high-level B-vitamin— B-complex vitamins.
Sometimes it's found in multivitamins. But again, choline is that main nutrient. It actually used to be considered part of the B-vitamin family. But choline is great for helping your liver get rid of this excess fat. Now, the single best way to get choline is to eat eggs and liver.
Now, you can take liver as a supplement like liver capsules, but eggs and liver have the highest levels of choline. So if you did about 2 eggs a day, okay, you could scramble up eggs. And again, if they're pasture-raised, they're going to have a lot more choline if they have the bright orange, beautiful yolks. But eggs, couple eggs for breakfast, 2 to 3 eggs, you're going to get choline. So you could cook up those eggs in extra virgin olive oil and take a liver supplement and get lots of choline.
So while you're trying to detoxify your liver, those are going to help tremendously. Now, here's what I alluded to earlier. There is a beverage that greatly reduces your risk of fatty liver disease. And I think most of you are going to appreciate this. Okay.
It is black Coffee. Researchers pooled studies of more than 430,000 people. Okay, nearly half a million people. And every 2 cups of coffee a day went with a 44% lower risk of liver cirrhosis. Now, coffee has an ability due to its bitterness and some of the compounds in there to cause you to have more bowel movements.
It causes your liver to release bile. So it causes your liver to detoxify. And in Chinese medicine, we would say this tonifies the liver. It supports its detoxification. So black coffee, again, and I'm not talking about going to Starbucks and getting a pumpkin spice latte or a peppermint frappuccino that's like 100 grams of sugar.
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about black coffee. Now, maybe you're putting in a splash of almond milk or something like that. That's fine, okay? But black coffee.
The other thing I would say that would be tremendous to use is green tea, okay? So green tea, black coffee, great for fatty liver. So let's start with, here's 3 things to feed your liver. Number 1, start every morning with protein, okay? Could be 2 eggs and then cook in olive oil, all right?
So you got that for breakfast and then a cup of coffee or cup of green tea, could be matcha, That's ideal. And then no sugar before noon. Let your body rest. Or if you are going to do that, you could do a half a cup of blueberries or some pomegranates or an apple. Those are some of the better fruits for detoxifying the liver.
And then there's exercise. There's movement. Okay, listen to this. And there's also just walking. But there was a study done on 47 adults over 8 weeks.
Liver fat dropped in Every exercise group without meaningful weight loss. And the intensity didn't matter much. Here was the key, is that people just move throughout the day. Lots of short walks, 15 to 20-minute walks around meals. Again, just 15 minutes of walking helped.
Now, strength training twice a week also tremendously helped. And that's what I'd recommend for most of you. Walk, do 2 to 3 days of weightlifting, do maybe a day of more intense cardio. And if you can, but at the very least, walk and weight train twice a week. Walk daily, Weight train twice a week.
If you can do that, you can reverse fatty liver disease.
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My single favorite herb is milk thistle. 99 Adults with an inflamed liver took milk thistle at 700 milligrams 3 times a day, and then there was a placebo group as well. This was done for 48 weeks. This is almost a year-long study. Scarring improved in 22% of the milk thistle group.
On the placebo, only 6%. Milk thistle even helped reverse scarring, so later stages of fatty liver. And by the way, when my mom had went through chemotherapy, I did all of this research years after and looking at my mom because I knew she still had a lot of these liver issues. And so we started having her do milk thistle every single day. And I think it was such a game changer for her, even 10 years later, healing from the side effects of chemotherapy.
All the toxicity, she had fatty liver, all of those issues, was incredible healing for her. So again, I love milk thistle for that reason. All right, now let me walk you through the top 10 herbs and supplements for reversing fatty liver disease. Number 10, dandelion root, drinking 2 to 3 cups a day. Dandelion root, we know— by the way, dandelion is also a natural diuretic, so when you drink dandelion root, make sure you're drinking plenty of water throughout the day, but dandelion A great natural liver detoxifier.
Number 9 is betaine. This is a, you know, supports the liver as well. That's good. Number 8 are probiotics. Taking a multistrain is good.
Number 7, this is one of my favorite supplements of all time. It's one I take regularly. N-acetylcysteine, 600 milligrams twice daily. That boosts up glutathione, great for causing the liver to regenerate and heal itself. And just protecting the liver in general.
Number 6 is turmeric and curcumin. We know this is going to reduce inflammation of the liver. Number 5, berberine. Remember we talked about blood sugar and insulin resistance contributing to fatty liver. So berberine, 500 milligrams, 2 to 3 times daily with meals.
Also with berberine, mulberry leaf would be great if you want to swap it because you can't take berberine year-round, but you could do berberine for an 8-week period of time. You could also do mulberry leaf. You could also do chromium, is great as well. Number 4, omega-3 fats, right? Fish oil, 2 grams daily.
That's going to help reduce inflammation. Now, here's the big 3. Choline. We talked about choline earlier, right? If you're not getting it from eggs and food, you want to make sure it's in a supplement.
Number 2, milk thistle. We already talked about that. The silymarin is incredibly healing for the liver. And then number 1 is actually vitamin E. Vitamin E. There are studies showing vitamin E, 800 IU daily, is very effective for helping heal. Now, to get vitamin E, you could also get some certain types of nuts and seeds, like walnuts would be fantastic, but vitamin E, also very healing for fatty liver.
And here's what an ideal liver reset day would look like. Number 1, start your morning off with some coffee or green tea, then some eggs sautéed in extra virgin olive oil with some vegetables. Or maybe a 4th of a cup, just a little bit of berries there. Apple would be fine too. But that's your morning.
For lunch, a big salad with salmon or sardines or a big bowl of chicken vegetable soup, something like that for lunch. And then for dinner, again, salmon, could be chicken, could be very lean like 93/7 grass-fed beef, and then a bunch of steamed vegetables. A little bit of dark chocolate would be fine, maybe some pomegranate, but that's dinner. And then not eating after dinner, lights out. And then sleep that 7 to 9 hours per night.
And then I would say for breakfast is when you could do those supplements we talked about as well. Now, here are the top 10 liver healing foods. Okay, coffee and green tea, I'm going to throw those in together, number 1. Eggs, pasture-raised. Extra virgin olive oil, especially if it's high in polyphenols.
Broccoli, salmon, garlic actually has liver cleansing properties. Beets, very good for the liver. Boosting nitric oxide, helping cleanse, berries, apples, and pomegranates, oats or oatmeal, and avocado. These are some of the absolute best things for you to eat to support your liver. I want to throw in one other here as a bonus, broccoli sprouts, okay?
Buying sprouts or microgreens, just green vegetables in general, asparagus, zucchini, spinach are very healing to the liver. In Chinese medicine, It was known that green foods heal the liver. Think about olive oil. It's a little bit green. Green tea, broccoli, all the things we're talking about there tend to be very cleansing and healing for the liver.
And I also want to say, one of the ways you know that you're moving in the right direction is if you are, for instance, let's say you're 10 pounds overweight or 20 pounds overweight. They did this study on 293 adults who had fatty liver inflammation, and these people decided that they changed their diet and exercised well. For an entire year. And over the course of that year, the average person lost 10% of their body weight. Okay, 10%.
So not 10 pounds, 10% of their body weight. So if they weighed 200 pounds, they lost 20 pounds. And they found in 90% of those people, they reversed their fatty liver inflammation. Okay, and 45% of the people who lost 10% also saw their scarring improve. So If you were to take 1 year and follow this sort of plan we're talking about, overnight— and the plan that I have here is actually more advanced and better than the plan these people even followed— but you would reverse fatty liver 90+% of the time.
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We've got hundreds of 5-star reviews on Trustpilot, and most of them started right where you are. If you're ready to finally be heard, then go to mybloodwork.com to book your cellular blood work analysis today. Now, I've had people ask me, hey, what do you think about Ozempic or GLP-1s for fatty liver disease? Well, here is why it might be effective. You eat less.
Okay, well, what happens when you eat less? Well, now your liver has more time to cleanse and detoxify overall. Okay, so generally speaking, it's going to improve it. But remember, there's side effects. There's muscle loss, there's malnutrition, there's a lot of things that start to happen.
So I would say if you're going to do GLP-1s, you want to do the right dosage. The dose right now, I believe, is too high. I believe it should be cut down by anywhere, you know, to a quarter to 10%. Of what most people, what most doctors are recommending. But listen, I have no problems with GLP-1s or those types of peptides in smaller dosages when you combine them with the right diet and supplements and lifestyle.
So do it— taking a peptide while changing your diet and exercising properly at the right dosage. Remember my, my quote, which is a take on a, a quote from, uh, from a famed, uh, ancient physician, but the dose determines if something's medicine or poison. If the dosage is too high of something, it's toxic to the body. The side effects are too much. You know, if you ate 10 tablespoons of cinnamon a day, it would be toxic to your body because it has too many fat-soluble vitamins.
But 1 tablespoon or a couple teaspoons a day is incredibly healing for reversing diabetes and your blood sugar. So the same thing here with these peptides is you want to make sure You're taking the right dose, if you take the right lower dose and combine it with the diet I just talked about and exercising and doing these things, then that's fine and your liver can heal in an incredible way. Now, I want to mention I created something for you I think you're going to love. I created a liver detoxification and healing guide. So it has in there, in this guide that you can grab in the show notes, the exact plan that you need to follow.
In order to heal fatty liver disease. Okay? It goes through the supplements, it goes through the exact foods you need, it goes through all the things you need. So make sure to go to the show notes and download that free guide right now. Also, make sure to subscribe here to the podcast.
By the way, when you subscribe, you're entering in our giveaway. Right now, I'm giving away over $5,000 of free wellness equipment. I'm talking about a sauna. I'm talking— and this is from Sunlighten. I'm talking about Manukora Manuka honey.
I'm talking about a red light therapy, red light mask, books. We are giving away so much. And so if you subscribe, you're now going to be entered to win over $5,000 worth of these incredible natural medicine gifts. So make sure to subscribe right now as well. And also, I want to say, hey, if you need someone on your side to help you heal naturally, if you are virtual and you're not in the area of Tennessee, hey, I've got a virtual practice called The Health Institute.
You can get blood work done, you can work with a health coach, so you can do all that online. Or if you are in the Nashville, Tennessee area, The Longevity Clinic, we have people especially with more severe illnesses we will work with there as well. But we do that at both clinics. But overall, you can check out The Longevity Clinic at thelongevityclinic.com, thehealthinstitute.com. And if you want more great health content, you can also visit draxe.com.
That is my website where you can ask me anything. You'll find, by the way, I have a cool new tool on there. It's called the Vitamin Advisor. You can go on there, it'll ask you questions, and it will tell you all of the supplements you should be taking or shouldn't be taking. It's called the Dr. Axe Vitamin Advisor.
You can find that there on Dr. Axe. That's draxe.com. All right. Last thing I want to mention here when it comes to liver health, your spiritual health is incredibly important. This was known in Chinese medicine.
It was also known by a lot of the ancient, ancient Christians. But certain emotions cause liver toxicity. Anything that is tied to anger, bitterness towards others, resentment. If you think about, is there anybody you're resenting right now? Is there anybody that you haven't forgiven?
These are tied to liver issues. If there is some— if you're living with guilt and shame from the past, all of these act like a toxin or even a parasite within your body. Creating disease. And so what I would encourage you to do is forgive. If you haven't forgiven someone, forgive.
Let go of resentment. Respond to hate with love. Do your best to grow spiritually. Spend some time reading your Bible, spending some time in with a gratitude practice. These will also help heal the liver.
And so I want to encourage you to combine the diet, the supplements, the activity along with those spiritual practices. And if you do all those things, you are going to be able to heal fatty liver disease very quickly. Well, hey, thanks again for tuning in here. Remember, don't forget to subscribe. Don't forget to get your free guide in the show notes.
Thanks again for watching. I'm praying you are blessed. I can't wait to see you on the next episode. And if you want to keep going, make sure to watch this episode next where I walk you through exactly how to get Get rid of visceral fat around your organs.
