How To Repair Your Liver

You’ve had a rest and now it’s time to clear up

There’s something rather soothing about the first few months of the year. There’s not much going on, diary-wise, but there’s a pile of books still waiting to be read and plenty of great stuff to catch up with on TV. This is a time of rest and some light internal housekeeping. The liver is the place to start.

The liver is a thing of wonder, the multi-tasker par excellence. It creates, destroys, alchemises, cleanses, sifts and filters its way through whatever you throw at it, without ever taking a break.

It rarely makes a fuss, and can put up with a great deal before it starts to rumble. So you may not notice when it is functioning below par, or has started to accumulated fat.

There are two things you need to do to show your liver some love: clear and strengthen your detox pathways, and reduce any fattiness you may have accumulated in that region.

Let’s start with your detoxification pathways.

Clear the way

Until very recently — about a century ago — the work of the liver’s detox department was on the whole fairly manageable: recycle old hormones, process food metabolites, make heavy metals safe, eliminate pollution from smoke… run-of-the-mill stuff for such a…