¶ Green Tea
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Imagine for a second being able to cleanse your liver of harmful fat with just one cup of a simple concoction every day . Ladies and gentlemen , in today's video , we're going to be unveiling a game-changing liquid elixir , but it also packs a punch in revitalising your liver . No gimmicks , no fads , just backed by scientific research .
Stick around , because what you're about to discover could redefine your approach to liver health . So , first of all , what exactly is the liver ? While most human organs have evolved to carry out one basic function , the liver took on a distinctly different approach . It's the jag of many trades and master of them all .
It is often quoted as performing over 500 different functions . Here are some of the major ones . It's a chemical factory of the body . The liver produces a host of compounds that are crucial to more or less every aspect in the body's functioning . It is also involved in the metabolism of fats , carbohydrates and proteins .
It filters the blood and most of the blood in your body passes through the liver . The liver then removes foreign substances and toxins from the blood , as well as unnecessary waste products . It also metabolises drugs and other toxins .
So when chemicals like drugs , insecticides , pesticides , pollutants or any other unwanted substance enters the body , it's the liver's task to then break them down so they can be expelled , and this happens in two distinct phases .
In very simple terms , phase one involves breaking down the foreign substance into smaller molecules , and phase two making them more water soluble so that they can then be expelled from the body . It also aids in digestion . The human digestive system could not function properly without the liver .
Some of the critical functions that it performs in this regard include regulating blood sugar , producing bile , cholesterol and several proteins that are crucial to digestion . It also stores vitamins , minerals , fats , sugars and various other nutrients . It then releases them when necessary , ensuring that levels stay within tightly regulated limits .
Not a bad thing for just over three pounds of mass . So now that we have an understanding of what the healthy liver is supposed to do , it's time to see what happens when it gets sick . See , by far the most common disease of the liver today is fatty liver disease . As the name suggests . This is when excess fat starts to accumulate in the liver tissue .
You can literally see this fat under a light microscope as white blood interspersed among the healthy liver cells . This excess fat causes inflammation in the liver , leading to the leakage of certain liver enzymes into the bloodstream . This makes it possible to identify fatty liver from a simple blood test , the so-called transaminase .
This makes it possible to identify fatty liver from a simple blood test , but bear in mind that the transaminase can also be high from other causes . But while fatty liver is almost universal among heavy drinkers , it's far from a drinkers only disease . In the US , over 20% of the adult population are thought to have fatty liver .
In non-drinkers , the number one cause of fatty liver is a poor diet , meaning it's very common among obese , overweight and diabetic individuals . Sadly , it is now also becoming increasingly diagnosed in younger ages , affecting close to 10% of children in the US . Speaking of fatty liver , humans aren't the only species to suffer from this condition .
Foie gras , the famous French delicacy , is actually made from the fatty liver of either duck or geese . But in contrast to humans , this is not something that geese bring onto themselves through voluntary lifestyle choices . Sadly , to induce the fatty liver farmers deliberately force feed them through tubes that they shove down their throats .
Now , more often than not , fatty liver has no visible symptoms . Unless you get your bloods done or have an ultrasound of the liver , you're probably not going to know that you even have it .
The problem is that a fatty liver is potentially just the first sign that all is not right with your liver , and without treatment it can sometimes progress onto the next stage of liver disease , hepatitis . This is just the ancient Greek way of saying inflammation of the liver . Like fatty liver , the hepatitis can be divided into alcoholic or non-alcohol related .
This stage of liver disease does not have a number of noticeable symptoms , most commonly fatigue , loss of appetite , nausea , weight loss , abdominal tenderness and the yellowing of the skin . While hepatitis is still reversible , at least most of the times , the third and final stage of liver disease is not so .
In liver cirrhosis , the healthy tissue is largely replaced by scar tissue , so-called fibrosis . You get the same symptoms as hepatitis , but in a much more severe form . This is irreversible end-stage liver disease with an average life expectancy of about two years in severe cases .
But I don't want to scare you here , and we definitely need to keep things in perspective . Whilst you should be educated as to the stages of liver disease when making your lifestyle choices , do bear in mind that hepatitis and throes are much more rare than fatty liver .
Now , having said that , if you've been diagnosed with fatty liver , it's something that you should definitely want to reverse . This will optimize your liver function and largely prevent more severe liver complications . So reversing your fatty liver can also reduce the risk of related health issues like high blood pressure and diabetes . So let's find out how to do this .
Enter the fat fighting drink to the rescue . Though there is no FDA-approved medication against fatty liver , scientists have potentially identified a very promising natural remedy , and it's green tea . This is made from the leaves of the same plants as black tea .
The difference is in how the leaves are processed , green tea being made from unfermented and black tea from fermented leaves . Green tea is rich in a group of antioxidants called catechins . These belong to a class of plant compounds called flavonoids , which have been linked to a variety of health benefits .
So , of the various types of green tea catechins , the most abundant and biologically active is Epigallocatechin gallate , or EGCG . Published research has implicated EGCG as potentially having health benefits with regards to cardiovascular diseases , diabetes and metabolic health , and increasingly , researchers are exploring it as a potential remedy against fatty liver .
A 2022 review , which I've linked to in the description , looked at 30 rodent and 21 human studies before concluding that certain green tea catechins are quote efficacious natural substances that aid in reducing multiple manifestations of NAFLD non-alcoholic fatty liver disease .
Now the authors of the review identified several possible biochemical mechanisms for this , including regulation of the metabolism of lipids and carbohydrates , attenuation of inflammation and oxidative stress , and reduction in liver
¶ Green Tea Benefits for Fatty Liver
cell damage . So to start enjoying these benefits , you can simply drink green tea , ideally 2 or 3 cups a day . Bear in mind that , while it's nowhere near as strong as coffee , this stuff does still have some caffeine in it , so you don't want to go crazy . Alternatively , you can purchase a green tea extract in the form of capsules .
These are widely sold online and are very affordable .
So green tea is a wonderful natural remedy and if you were dealing with fatty liver or , better yet , if you don't want to deal with it , then you have nothing to lose by looking into it and next time you see your doctor run it past them and together then you can decide if this is the right treatment for you and you can also discuss the appropriate dosage
with them . However , it's important that we don't lose sight of one fundamental truth Fatty liver , along with most other chronic conditions affecting humans today , is a lifestyle disease of excess .
For many people , the particular excess leading to a fatty liver will have a very specific name alcohol Supplementing with green tea while you're still drinking it would be a bit of a fool's errand . So you would remove the elephant in the room by stopping drinking , and then you can aid and accelerate the healing process with green tea supplements .
And the same goes for non-alcoholic fatty liver . As we saw , this is largely related to excess eating , particularly low quality sauces like sugars , refined grains , fried and processed food , dairy and so on .
So , especially if you're overweight , a lowering your calorie intake , while B ensuring that you get most of your calories from whole and unprocessed food is paramount . A ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting are two other dietary interventions that you can rapidly use to remove fat from your liver .
Regular exercise on its own , without even necessarily losing weight , can also be effective .
