One very important aspect to ancient systems of healing like acupuncture from China or the Ayurvedic system from India, and indeed other systems throughout the world, is the build-up of toxins in the body, affecting systems or structures in the body. In arthritis-type conditions the liver function is implicated, and many systems look to improve the liver function.

Toxicity can be due to endo-toxins (external toxins), food allergies, and/or toxins from environmental factors for instance inhaled from the atmosphere or consumed through processed foods, leading to circulating immune complexes (CICs). Once these circulating immune complexes reach a certain level within our body pain and inflammation can be a result which is seen in arthritis type conditions.

These circulating immune complexes can also be formed in the body when larger molecules than is normal enter into the blood stream from the gastrointestinal tract, due to the unusual permeability of the gut lining known as “leaky gut”. This unusual permeability can be caused by the average poor diet a long with too many sodas, or too much alcohol or years of taking the ‘pill’ or the regular use of antibiotics, even regular use of pain-killer. All of these over time adversely affect the health and function of the gut lining, allowing molecules to pass through into the blood stream that would other (if the gut lining was healthy) not be able to pass through.

All of this has a knock on affect on the amount of work the liver has to do on a daily basis. The liver begins to struggle and is unable to keep up and a back log develops. When I say your liver begins to struggle we are not talking about malfunction or liver disease, we are talking about the liver is under stress, due to a number of reasons like an overload of toxins, medication, deficiencies of certain nutrients etc. This back log of toxins can begin to accumulate in and cause problems – such as aches and pains.

So how do you know if your liver is struggling? What are the signs and symptoms?

Liver questionnaire – signs and symptoms

Do you get a little travel sick?

Do you have poor eye sight?

Do you have trouble digesting fats and oils?

Do you feel uncomfortable after a greasy meal?

Do you have pale stools?

Do you feel uncomfortable on the right side of your body under the rib cage?

Do you get frequent headaches?

Do you have nausea from time to time?

Do you get migraines?

Do you find alcohol affects you more than most?

Do you have a particular hate or love for sour things like vinegar?

Spring is the season associated with the liver. Do you love or hate the Spring?

Look at your face (without make-up) the area at the top of nose between the eye brows – is it a problem area? Such as – scaly or dry or greasy or spotty or discoloured (yellow or greenish) and/or itchy?

You need to take the load off your liver and here are some things you can do to help it -

1) Give up alcohol for a while or certainly reduce the amount you drink on a regular basis.

2) Drink enough water and give up sodas

3) Drink herbal teas like boldo or dandelion

4) To help flush out your liver in the morning – take a little warm water with half the juice from a fresh lemon and drink first thing.

5) Take Milk Thistle herb for a few months, this herb is well known for helping the liver.

6) Vitamin C

7) B complex

Magnesium

9) If you have taken a lot of anti-biotics and/or pain-killers you should take some good quality pro-biotics for a while.

10) Avoid artificial sweeteners of any description

11) Drastically cut down on the processed food you eat.

12) If you are prone to constipation – eat more whole foods as they contain fiber and nutrients.

13) Add lecithin to your breakfast

14) Reduce stress by watching comedies more, laugh more – this will reduce the amount of toxic chemicals your body is producing due to stress.