What Is the Best Way to Do a Liver Cleanse?

Video Transcript

"My name is Christine Marquette and I'm a registered and licensed dietitian with the Austin Regional Clinic, and I've been asked what is the best way to do a liver cleanse? Well most cleanses typically are not recommended because they usually involve a very drastic diet that's primarily a liquid diet, some type of fasting. So they're usually not recommended for most people, especially if you have a health condition such as diabetes that requires that you eat on a regular basis. Or if you're taking medication that requires that you eat, it's best to avoid any type of cleansing diet. A lot of people will use liver cleanses in the thought that it can help expel gallstones, gallbladder stones. And the reason why is your gallbladder and your liver are related to each other in the sense that they both can produce bile. Bile acids are actually used by your intestines to help digest foods and if you don't have a proper amount it can decrease your ability to actually digest foods that have fat or proteins in them. Sometimes there is a problem with slight blockage in your bile ducts whether it be in your liver or your gallbladder. Sometimes this is exasperated by a very high fat diet and people can develop gallstones. So a lot of times people think by doing a liver cleanse this will help decrease their propensity to develop gallstones. However there has been no scientific evidence that this actually works. A lot of times when people do these cleanses they traditionally involve drinking juices such as apple juice, eating lemons, grapefruits, using Epson salts, a lot of olive oil, a mixture basically of all of these things taken as a cocktail over a period of a couple of days. At this point you will actually have a lot of bowel movements and quite frequently you will have bowel movements that look like stones. Now these actually are not stones, what they are is they are bile soaps that have been formed by the bile acids, the bile salts in your digestive track forming with the olive oil and the citric acid from all of these juices that you were drinking being expelled as what appears to be stones however they are much softer than true gallstones. Fairly rare in this country for people to develop liver stones, it's its very uncommon. It's much more common to develop gallstones, so there truly isn't a good way to do a liver cleanse. It's really best just to make sure you're eating a healthy diet on a general basis, drinking plenty of water. That will help keep your system flushed of any potential toxins. Problems crop up when people don't drink enough water and they eat a lot of processed food, and a lot of high fat food."