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Good Food Good Health - Keep Your Liver Healthy

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Hi everyone

We all feel good when we have been out and eaten a good meal, the feel good factor really kicks in, our mood is enhanced making us less stressed helping to keep our body's immune system ready for anything thrown at it. Keeping our inner body - our organs healthy, and along with a healthy mind gives us all a greater wellness and sense of being, and leads to good health.

Eating good food for good health is essential for a healthy liver, and a varied nutritional diet is the true way to give all our body the vitamins and minerals that we need to keep us in tip top condition.

Often overlooked is the need to drink plenty of fluids, not only through the summer time but all year round. We not only need to drink plenty of fluid to stop us becoming dehydrated - which itself causes many problems, but to help the liver flush toxins out of our system.

As we know the liver is the largest gland in the body and it performs more than 500 functions, we all really do need to look to our diet to enable it to look after our body for us. The liver is a complex organ and works like a stream lined machine when it is healthy, comparable to a 'computer' in it's many tasks, from storing carbohydrates and vitamins to excreting waste products from our bloodstream.

The production of bile is one of the main tasks; this aids digestion of food and is what makes faeces brown. It metabolises carbohydrates and proteins, and stores and metabolises fats - producing cholesterol. The livers production of blood clotting chemicals and heparin - an anticoagulant is another major function along with regulating the amount of sugar in the bloodstream.

It synthesises Vitamin A and stores it together with vitamins B12, D and K. The liver also removes poisons, drugs and worn-out red blood cells from the bloodstream; these are also extremely important tasks. Unfortunately being such a complex organ makes the liver susceptible to a vast number of disorders.

Recently, a topic that has hit the headlines many times is the rise in cases of cirrhosis of the liver, generally through alcohol abuse with today's current trends of fashionable binge drinking. Cirrhosis - where scar tissue replaces dead or injured liver cells - actually has many causes not just alcohol that most people are aware of; gallstones or other blockages that block the bile duct, hepatitis and immune system disorders also cause it. Cirrhosis of the liver can also occur for no apparent or known reason - is chronic inflammation and can progress ultimately to organ failure.

Obviously cancer of the liver is extremely serious because of the organs many important functions. Inflammation of the liver is called hepatitis. Hepatitis A - 'infectious hepatitis' is caused by a virus and is transmitted by food and drink. Hepatitis A is rarely serious. Hepatitis B - 'serum hepatitis' is far more serious, also a viral infection and is spread through use of infected blood and blood products, sexual intercourse, syringes and needles.

I believe it is good for us all to take some time and think about our 'organs', how they work continuously and what they do, showing how intrinsically important they are to our good health.

Highlighting the knock on effect of continually abusing the liver whether through bad diet, alcohol or drugs, should I believe be made more aware to everyone, just as smoking has been with publicity and the effect it has on health and the lungs. So help your liver by eating good food, it does not have to be expensive, fresh food that is seasonal has the best vitamin and mineral content. Use your local market or farm shop.

Fresh quick frozen food is another great way of getting excellent properties from all types of foods including fish.

Include fresh greens - all green vegetables are excellent, broccoli contains vitamins B and C and folic acid for detoxification. Cabbage and broccoli, along with garlic and onions contain a high content of natural sulphur needed for detoxification. Garlic and onions also contain selenium and glutathione that act as anti-oxidants.

All fruits are great for us including strawberries, raspberries, melons, oranges, blackcurrants, red grapes, guava etc - all with excellent vitamin and anti-oxidant properties.

Tomatoes - are high in lycopene an excellent source of anti-oxidant. You can easily get your daily vitamin C from peppers instead of eating oranges each day.

Lean meat, eggs and fish are important too, and a good source of fibre from cereals, bread etc.

So remember our motto 'good food is good health' and make it a way of life as we are what we eat after all, and by consuming a wide variety of foods regularly enables us to attain the vast range of minerals and vitamins we need to keep all of our body in good condition.

Sandra & Ted

This article was composed by Sandra & Ted Wosko. We have always been interested in health issues especially having children, and as with most people, we all suffer with some type of ailment. We are always researching on more and more topics in the endless task of gaining more knowledge to increase our expertise, benefiting ourselves and other people alike.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sandra_Wosko

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