You Must Know This Before Doing a Liver Detox!

Scott: We've mentioned the skin and the liver, and both of those organs are major detox organs.  Is detoxing something that you subscribe to, you think that people should do on a regular basis.  There's a lot of supplement products you can buy for the 30 day detox or whatever.  Is that important to do, in one way or another, on a regular basis?

Donna Burka Wild: I prefer people eat foods that promote liver detox on a daily basis.  Whether it be eggs, brussel sprouts, broccoli, cabbage.  Um, let's see, what are some of the other ones... asparagus, onions, garlic, they all promote liver detox.  So I want people eating those foods on a regular basis.  But so many people are toxic today, because of all the chemicals in our food and in our water and in our environment, that very sick people, I tend to do a three week liver detox.  And liver detoxes need to be three weeks long so that the liver has time to convert the fat soluble toxins into water soluble toxins to eliminate them from the liver.  So if you only do it for a week, you're basically doing more harm than good, at least from what I was trained, because now you have all these metabolites that are stuck in the liver that haven't been cleared out because you haven't done it long enough.

I know people who do liver detoxes on a regular basis.  I tell my clients only once or twice a year.  Most liver detoxes are based with cold foods, so have them do them in warm seasons like spring or early summer when there' s lots of vegetables available.  A lot of people want to detox after the holidays, so I'll add some warming foods like broths and things that are not typically recommended on a detox, but I feel that they need them in the winter to keep them warm.

If you detox too often, it can deplete the immune system, so that's why, if they're going to do one of those hefty detoxes, I only have them do it once or twice a year.  But eat the foods of detox every day.