However, the liver is not almighty and if you want to maintain it healthy throughout your life you are going to need to watch yourself. Otherwise you may just wond up with a damaged liver, which causes weight gain, skin rashes, bad breath, bleeding, cancer, and death.

Drink Plenty Of Water

Everyone knows they should hydrate their body. But why? Because water is necessary for pretty much any chemical reaction going on in your body, including cleansing and processing metabolic substances and drugs, which is carried out by your liver. When there isn’t enough water toxic waste and fat starts to pile up as less and less chemical reactions undergo completion.

Not only that but water itself contains several ions in addition to the water content which are used by your body for keeping you alive.

Do a Detox Every Now and Then

Detoxing is an amazing way to help your liver dispose of toxins and other unhealthy chemicals hanging around in your body. There are many types of cleansing out on the internet many of which are based on increasing consumption of water, frequently with honey, lemon juice or some comercial kit.

During the process you will stop eating and this will free up resources for your liver to heal itself and to heal the rest of your body. Because of this fast you should consult with your doctor as for some people it may not be healthy to undergo a detox.

Take Supplements

There are a number of supplements that can help promote excellent liver functions. Vitamin C, calcium, omega-3 fatty acids, turmeric and milk thistle can promote good liver health. I have compile a short guide to cure liver disease where you can also find the steps you can take to prevent liver damage and the best supplements to take.

Alternative 1 – Epsom Salts

These have been used as treatment for a number of conditions. Its effects include helping cure sleeping disorders, relieving muscle crams, and improving blood and oxygen flow through the body. Among fatty liver sufferers Eprom salts are increasingly popular.

They are usually used as a part of a liver detox along with fruit juice or olive oil, meant to flush out excess fat and bile which sometimes cause fatty liver disease itself.

Alternative 2 – Milk Thistle

MIlk thistle is so popular that even mainstream medicine has began to use it in cases of liver failure due to mushroom poisoning and in advanced liver disease to promote liver cell regeneration. The pharmaceutical industry has already isolated the component responsible for this effects, silymarin, an antioxidant which protects liver cells from damage.

Milk thistle is usually combined with a diet. In studies it can increase liver cell replication by as much as thirty percent and stimulates cellular protein synthesis, essential for all functions of your liver as well as for repairing cells (remember that protein is the building block of your body?).

Alternative 3 – Vitamins E and C

Supplementing a fatty liver diet with vitamins E and C is a somewhat new strategy but that is already showing promising results. Like milk thistle they are antioxidants that protect your liver cells and stimulate liver repair. Their advantage is that they do this throughout the body, so even though they are not as effective in the liver as silymarin they are still pretty damn good.

If you want a complete solution for your fatty liver problem try our liver disease treatment plan.

The diagnosis must always be explored in women over 40 who present with cholestasis, jaundice or elevated bilirrubin without jaundice. It is also most common in Northern Europe while being very rare in Japan. Despite all this, even a Japanese 20 year old man can have primary biliary cirrhosis.

When a doctor suspects this disease he will perform various tests: liver enzymes, anti-mitochondrial antibody (which is the most characteristic test, although up to 10% of people with primary biliary cirrhosis have normal levels of this antibody), markers of cell death, and a blood count. Usually a liver biopsy is necessary and it will give the definitive diagnosis by showing the cirrhosis caused by accumulated bile.

The symptoms of primary biliary cirrhosis can be very easy to ignore:

• Fatigue is the most common symptom, but it is not related to the severity of the disorder and people with advanced stages of the disease may not feel tired at all.
• Hypertension
• Obesity
• Vitamin deficiency problems, like bleeding, rashes and blurred vision

If the disease is not treated are other autoimmune diseases are bound to appear, including thyroiditis, and inflammatory bower disease. Patients are also at a greater risk for developing liver cancer, which can be prevented following simple preventing measures.

So you can imagine that liver disease can become quite serious if you don’t treat it. And even though the liver has an amazing capacity for recovery, it is always best if liver disease is handled in its early stages (inflammation) instead of more advanced stages (like cirrhosis or cancer.

First Stage – Inflammation

Inflammation is the first stage in liver disease and it can be triggered by a number of conditions (viral hepatitis, metabolic diseases) and chemicals, including alcohol and fat, as well as drugs, pollutants, holistic remedies, and spices. Inflammation may be silent or manifest itself with very light symptoms, like bad breath, discomfort or obesity.

Second Stage – Steatosis

As the damage ensues the liver is no longer able to process the nutrients you ingest, namely fat and cholesterol. So its cells take up fat but cannot convert it and the liver starts pilling up on fat which, in turn, takes up valuable space and resources that should be used for other liver functions. This stage is also normally symptomless.

Stage Three – Cirrhosis or Fibrosis

As the liver cells no longer can replace themselves they are replaced by scar tissue which, as you may guess, cannot perform the functions of a normal liver. Furthermore, it blocks blood flow through the liver preventing the remaining liver cells from functionally adequately.

This stage can cause swelling, bruising, bleeding, jaundice, gallstones, rashes, varicose veins, diabetes, as well as the mild symptoms of steatosis. In advanced stages it can cause liver failure (with death due to accumulation of toxic waste and lack of sugar for the brain) and kidney failure through a mechanism not yet fully understood.

Fourth Stage – Cancer

From all the activity necessary to constantly repair liver damage errors are bound to happen when duplicating DNA. These errors pave the way to cancer. Liver cancer, or hepatocellular carcinoma, can develop in any person but is much more likely to happen in people suffering from cirrhosis. The prognosis is not very bright, and the treatment usually involves transplantation and intensive chemotherapy. There have been some results using herbal medicine but these have not yet been fully explored.

Alcoholic liver disease is the most common cause of cirrhosis in the developed world. This term refers to a wide range of conditions resulting from excess intake of alcohol. Even though only 20% of heavy drinkers develop liver cirrhosis it is always a better choice to use alcohol in moderation.

Chronic hepatitis, both B and C, are the next most common cause in the developed countries and the most common cause in many underdeveloped and developing nations. Chronic hepatitis is a chronic infection of the liver cells, infected with either B or C hepatitis virus, a virus our immune system cannot defeat.

Drugs, both medical, over-the-counter, herbal, and illegal. Be cautious about herbal remedies because many are as dangerous as standard medicine. When in doubt consult with your physician and do so before removing any drug he or she prescribed – it may be harming your liver but it may also be keeping you alive.

Autoimmune hepatites and primary biliary cirrhosis (as well as secondary), inflammatory diseases with a strong hereditary component you can’t really prevent, only learn to control. The same can be said about inherited metabolic disease like hemochromatosis and Wilson’s.

Hepatic congestion secondary to right side heart failure, when your right heart doesn’t have enough strength to pump the blood out of your peripheral vessels and it piles up in the liver, leading to liver cell death.

Nonalcoholic liver disease (NASH), fatty liver disease of unspecified cause usually resulting from a variety of causes –  obesity, herbal and medical drugs, food, lack of exercise, insulin resistance… This is a silent disease often only discovered when it evolves into cirrhosis but which can be easily controlled.

Remember that the best treatment is prevention, so be on the lookout for the causes of liver cirrhosis. However, even if you already have cirrhosis you can still take a few steps to try and reverse it or even to prevent liver failure. Check out out free guide.

This common disease causes nausea, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, bad breath, rashes, among other small maladies that are so frequent nowadays.

Because it is far more lucrative to heal liver disease at more advanced stages, the pharmaceutical industry is not very interested in healing this mild condition (step one to cirrhosis and liver cancer and failure).

Fortunately, science is not limited to the pharmaceuticals and a few studies have shed some light on how to reverse fatty live disease.

The first step is exercising more. Exercising puts your liver in “fat burning mode”. Because fatty liver consists of accumulated fat on your liver cells, this will reverse the condition.

But alone exercise may not be enough and diet comes as a second important step. Raw vegetables and fruits should be added, meat and milk should be avoided. The reasons for this are many and you can find out more details on a healthy liver diet with our step-by-step guide on reversing liver damage.

Avoiding anything that can cause damage to your liver is also important. Unfortunately, because your liver is the organ responsible for handling toxic waste in your body this means a lot of the things you may be used to, top of which are alcohol, coffee, and tobacco. Both medical drugs and natural remedies have also been linked to sometimes severe liver damage.

Finally, some herbs have been studied for their liver healing effect. Many have been proven to be a scam, but three stand out: milk thistle, turmeric, and ginger. These three combined have reversed even serious cases of liver disease, like cirrhosis and cancer, and they consistently reversed milder cases.