Drinking alcohol affects your liver is a known thing, but what you probably might not have given thought about is how your lifestyle affects your liver health.
Liver—the largest organ in your body is charged with over 500 vital functions: removing waste and foreign substances out of your blood, processing nutrients, regulating blood sugar levels, producing proteins for blood clotting, and much more.
If your liver health is compromised, your body will find itself in a spot of bother. Strengthen your liver health with Krishna’s Liver Re-Live Juice. An ayurvedic formulation that empowers your liver’s capacity.
From sedentary jobs to temptations and distractions that lead to unhealthy food choices to popping pills without a prescription, several habits could be playing havoc with your liver health. Read on to understand how our lifestyle affects the liver.
Habits That May Damage Your Liver
1. Unhealthy Diet
You need food to make all vital organs do their job and to get the energy your body needs to function properly. The food you eat is broken down by your stomach and intestines, and the nutrients like carbohydrates, fat, and protein are absorbed into your bloodstream and carried to your liver. Here, they are either processed and used immediately to support important physiological functions or stored for later use.
While doing this, your liver also detoxifies harmful substances such as alcohol, other drugs, and some of your body’s waste products to prevent their accumulation.
A diet high in sugar, salt, unhealthy fats, and processed foods can increase the metabolic burden on your liver, which may cause severe liver damage.
For example, a high intake of refined sugars and sugary beverages causes a fatty buildup that can lead to liver disease. Excessive salt consumption also causes liver damage as it leads to fluid buildup and swelling in the organ.
Thus, to protect your liver you need to practise better eating habits, such as having more green vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fibre-rich foods, and avoiding excess trans and saturated fats, added sugars, and salt.
Also Read: Ayurveda for Lifestyle Modification
2. Modern Medicines
Everything that goes into your body is filtered by your liver, including certain medicines, so you can flush them out through your urine or bile. However, this process can be slow for some people, and overusing medications can cause inflammation and damage to the liver. And, the organ may not be able to do its job as efficiently as it should.
The best way to prevent such liver damage is to avoid self-medication. Even over-the-counter pills like fever-reducing medicines and painkillers can cause damage if you take them in larger doses or without a doctor’s recommendation.
3. Environmental Toxins
Environmental toxins like pesticides, pollution, and household chemicals are harmful substances that can be found in the air you breathe, the food you eat, and the products you use. They can make toxins enter your body and accumulate in the body’s organs, including your liver. This can affect liver cells and impair their function. Such a heavy burden of toxins on the organ might also lead to various diseases.
The first and foremost thing you can do to prevent this is to avoid areas with high pollution. You can also try panchakarma treatment, an ayurvedic therapy that includes different techniques to detoxify your body naturally.
You may also use natural remedies like Krishan’s Liver Re-Live Juice. It has 11 ayurvedic herbs that help detox your liver and also promote the regeneration of new liver cells.
4. Sedentary Lifestyle
Today, many people have sedentary jobs, which make them less physically active. Inactivity and obesity go hand in hand. When extra fat builds up in your liver it leads to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). This is a common condition that affects around 9–32% of the general Indian population. Though there are no symptoms, the disease may progress over time and cause severe liver damage which could be difficult to treat.
The potential fix for reversing fatty liver is weight loss, eating a healthy, plant-based diet and regular exercise to keep your liver cells healthy. No matter what activity you settle for, just make sure you do it consistently. Find something you enjoy and follow it religiously.
5. Smoking
Smoking is well-known for causing a host of life-threatening conditions like lung and heart diseases, but it can also be severely harmful to your liver. Here’s another reason why you should quit smoking!
The huge amount of toxic chemicals present in tobacco can cause immunological, and oncogenic effects on various organs of your body including the liver. Smoking also increases the production of cytokines, chemicals that increase inflammation and injury to the liver cells.
Someone whose liver function is already compromised may further worsen the condition especially if smoking is combined with alcohol. So think again before you light a cigarette. It can be a challenging task initially but with the right support, you can achieve a smoke-free life!
Wrapping Up!
Now you know that it’s not just alcohol that can cause liver damage but there are several other factors involved. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is a prerequisite for preserving your liver functions. The healthy changes you make help in shaping the biological health of your body, including your liver.
Though modern busy schedules, and unhealthy habits in times of stress often make it difficult to cope with a perfect lifestyle, proper nutrition and exercise can help you cope with those moments and steer clear of various illnesses.
A healthy liver helps you achieve a longer and more sustainable quality of life.
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