It's Dr. Amit, naturopathic doctor and psychotherapist. And today's my favorite lecture because I'm going to talk all about the liver now. And where's your liver it's under, it's underneath your right rib actually, for most people, and in Chinese medicine is known as your master organ, and in some religions or cultures is known as the seat of your health or the seat of life, or the seat of your soul. And I'll tell you why it's so important. So there's your liver over here. It rests underneath your right ribcage, usually opposite your heart.

And what is the liver do basically it's in charge of digestion of food, enzyme and immune cell activation, so it activates all your immune cells, and also your enzymes break down your food. So you can imagine if your livers not working well, of course, you're not going to digest your food too well. It's also the major detoxifying organ in your body. So you really got to take care of it. Well Otherwise you'd be full of toxins. The other thing that your liver is really important for is cholesterol management and metabolism.

So if your liver is stagnant or unhealthy, then your levels of cholesterol will become unhealthy as well. Here's some other things that your liver does hormone production, storage of vitamins and iron, and protein and clotting factor production. So it helps you make proteins and also if you have clotting problems, then you got to look at your liver as well. Now, the other thing that people don't know about is that your liver is actually helpful for storing blood glucose into what we call glycogen. So if you have sugar imbalances, your liver plays a huge role in that in your ability to store sugars and store fat. Now, in Chinese medicine, when you have a imbalance of liver energy, we call it liver Qi, stagnation One can get multiple multiple health issues.

For example, low levels of anger, depression, resentment. So the liver health actually affects your emotions as well. One can also get headaches, irritability, frequent sighing so you can see how from the top to the bottom of your body. Many symptoms exist just because of the liver Qi stagnation. So that shows you how much your liver affects your entire body. The other things that you can experience are tightness of your chest, sense of a lump in your throat, breast tenderness or swelling in the breasts, abdomen distension so stomach, stomach pains, stomach swelling, gas, bloating, nausea, vomiting.

And you can also have menstrual pain, fibroid issues and ovarian cysts. And that's because of course, your liver is directly connected to your hormones. The other thing that liver Qi stagnation Cause is constipation, as well as hemorrhoids. The reason why most people are constipated is because when their liver stagnant, there's less bile flowing, less bile being produced out of your liver and into your intestines, so there's less lubrication. And so when there's less lubrication of course, your poo gets very sticky in your intestines, and you're more prone to constipation. So a lot of people who are using laxatives all the time are sometimes mistaken because the answer is actually to detoxify your liver.

And I'll show you how to do that in the online course that I'm going to mention. Many people also with hemorrhoids, now hemorrhoids are these blood vessels that the bottom of your rectum off your butt that swell up and get filled with blood and that can be quite painful. And the reason why people get hemorrhoids in most cases is because the vein system the system of veins that drains the veins in your butt gets clogged up. Now, the veins in your butt drain into what we call the hepatic portal vein that goes directly to your liver. So if your liver is stagnant, then the hepatic portal vein gets backed up. And so the backing up happens all the way down to your rectum.

So the blood pools in your rectum because your liver upstairs is stagnant. So when you detoxify your liver, blood flows much better in all your veins including from your rectal veins and you have less hemorrhoids. So, in Chinese medicine, of course, livers directly related to emotions. And when your liver is stagnant, somebody will become more irritable, resentful, and depressed. At the same time. If you have a lot of anger and irritability, and an aggressive person, that energy will also stagnate your liver energy.

So keep in mind your emotions affect your liver and your liver affects your emotions both ways happen. Now, chronic disease chronic disease, you know, comes from inflammation in most cases. Why is your liver connected to inflammation? Well, when your liver is stagnant here, you have less bile and less enzyme activity, right? And then when that happens, you're poor digestion in your intestines. And also the environment of your intestines is ruined because there's not enough good juices from the liver.

And that creates what we call dysbiosis. Basically, when the environment is not healthy in your intestines, the good bacteria do not grow as fast, right? So you have a lot of bad bacteria, yeast and fungi in your intestines, because your liver is stagnant. That's not the only cause for dysbiosis. But the liver plays a huge role. When you have a dysbiosis and poor digestion, of course, you get more leaky gut syndrome that's holding you into science and inflammation and toxins going into your bloodstream.

And that's leading cause for asthma exam arthritis and a lot of chronic diseases. And you also get constipation which means a buildup of toxicity. Now all these toxins will cause more inflammation in your body. And all this inflammation affects your liver even more, right? So your liver becomes even more stagnant. And the cycle continues into chronic disease, liver and thyroid hormones.

So I'm going to walk you through different diseases, and so that you understand how your liver plays a role with thyroid function hypertension, heart disease, cancer even Okay, so let's walk through liver and thyroid. Did you know that a lot of your thyroid hormones actually converted from inactive t four into active t three thyroid hormone in your liver up to 60% actually, okay. So, if your livers not working well, you have less conversion of thyroid hormone into active thyroid hormone. I hope that makes sense. Right. So, you have inactive thyroid hormone which is known as T four.

And for it to be used by your body's cells. It needs to be activated in T three, a lot of that conversion or activation happens you Your liver, so you got to take care of your liver to make sure your thyroid hormones are being converted properly. And on the flip side, your liver cells actually need thyroid hormone to work well. So if you have low thyroid function, then the cells in your liver will not be able to use up energy because they need thyroid hormones to use energy or to metabolize energy. So if you have low thyroid function, your liver is not going to work well so you'd have more constipation, a lot of toxins in your body, right? So tired affects your liver and your liver affects your thyroid.

Now, liver in cancer, this is a beautiful, beautiful collection of information and I really want to share with you step by step Okay, so cancer what is cancer, cancer is mutation of cells, right of genes. And basically lots of quote unquote, I don't call it bad cells because all processes in your body have a biological purpose. Let's just call it The cancer cells they grow out of control and then the damage other parts of your body. Now, how is your liver connected to cancer? Remember, liver is not the only cause of cancer, it plays a huge role though. If your liver is toxic, if it's not working well, then the toxins will build up in your blood right because your blood cannot detoxify anymore because your liver stuck in all the toxins are backing up in your blood.

When your blood is toxic, you have a lot of toxins in your lymphatic system as well as around all your cells. And that those toxins actually damage your cells, the damage the mitochondria and the DNA through what we call oxidative damage. And when the damage happens, a lot of mutation happens. And then that's what creates cancer cells in most cases. The other thing that happens is when all you have all these toxins in your body, of course your blood and your body becomes more acidic in nature. And it's a well known fact that cancer thrives in a more acidic environment and that's what a lot of people try and alkalize the body to minimize the proliferation of cancer cells.

Now remember that your immune system also depends on your liver because your liver activates your immune cells. So if your immune if your liver is not working well, then you have less activation of immune cells and you know that cancer is fought by immune cells. Okay, so hopefully that makes sense. immune cells are needed to fight cancer. And if your livers not working well, your immune cells are not activated well enough. The other thing to notice is that if you have a lot of toxins in your body and your blood becomes acidic, then what happens is your red blood cells, they start clumping together because of the acid environment they they get, they become closer together.

And this is due to the hydrogen ions on your red blood cells. When your red blood cells clump together, now your red blood cells are responsible for distributing oxygen all over your body, so imagine all your red blood cells clumped together. That means there's less surface area now to distribute oxygen to the different cells in your body, so your body would have lower levels of oxygen going to the cells. And we know based on Otto Warburg principles or theory, that cancer actually multiplies in a low oxygen environment, right. So, if there's less toxins in your body, there'll be less clumping of red blood cells. And therefore, the red blood cells will expose themselves more to all the cells in your body giving more oxygen all over, and therefore with help minimize against the low oxygen environment that cancer cells need.

Let's move on. You can your liver is directly related to hormonal balance so if your liver is toxic, not working well. Your hormones will be out of balance. So you will likely have more estrogen dominance or progesterone deficiency. And we know a lot of cancers are hormone dependent. So we want to make sure that we balanced the liver to balance the hormones.

What else, we know that cancer is directly related to inflammation. So remember that if you live or stagnant, you have more leaky gut syndrome, right? More constipation, poor digestion. And when you have leaky gut syndrome, there's a lot of inflammation that goes on all over your body and can contribute to making cancer worse. Here we have a slide on cortisol, diabetes, stress and inflammation. What does all that mean?

Well, inflammation, of course causes a cortisol imbalance. And when you have a cortisol imbalance, so cortisol is a hormone that's needed to manage inflammation, and cortisol is produced by adrenal system. So when you have a higher demand of cortisol in your body, your adrenal glands get better. Higher, and your adrenal glands are responsible also for helping release sugar from your muscles and from your liver. So when your adrenal glands are tired, your balance or release of sugar is affected, making you more prone to diabetes. What about cholesterol and heart disease?

Well, if you're more toxic, you're going to get more inflammatory damage to your blood vessels, right? And when that damage happens, of course, your body has to repair the blood vessels so you get more clotting along your arteries. And that clotting causes the plaque buildup, a buildup of plaque and the closing of arteries. And that's often seen as the main cause of heart attacks and heart disease. Also, what happens is, if your body is toxic, and your liver is affected, it's stagnant. Your liver is responsible for cholesterol metabolism, right?

So if your livers not healthy, your cholesterol levels are going to go up. And your triglycerides are also going to go up make you more prone to heart disease. What about hypertension, so high blood pressure. So remember the plaque buildup that I talked about in the blood vessels. If the vessels going to your kidneys get clogged up, you'd have less blood flow going to your kidneys. Now your kidneys are also a sensory organ.

So when they sense that there's less blood flow, they think your blood pressure's too low, right? Or there's not enough blood in your body. So what do you kidneys do? They actually release hormones, such as renin and which causes your adrenal system to release aldosterone, another hormone and aldosterone helps you to retain water and salt right? To so when you retain water and salt Of course you build up your blood volume So let me repeat that when your kidneys, the artist, your kidneys are clogged up, your kidneys think there's less blood in your body. So they release hormones telling your body to keep more water and keep more salt.

And that will drive up your blood volume and therefore drive up your blood pressure. And that's a huge problem. Also, what happens is when you're toxic, and your red blood cells clump together, and you know, that means less oxygen distribution, your body thinks there's less oxygen in the body. So what your body wants to do is increase the blood pressure to make sure that more oxygen is delivered to your cells, right? And so the low oxygen because of red blood cell clumping will drive your blood pressure up as well. Right so two reasons why your liver is directly related to hypertension as well.

What about depression and anxiety? This is one of my favorite topics. Well, of course, as you saw toxic liberal creator unhealthy gut and unhealthy gut or dysbiosis then will create more leaky gut syndrome and more inflammation. And when you have more inflammation inflammation affects your cortisol levels you get a cortisol imbalance. And when you have a cortisol imbalance, your levels of brain chemicals such as serotonin, dopamine, GABA and melatonin will start dropping, leading to more anxiety, depression, insomnia, low motivation and fatigue. The other thing to remember is that most of your serotonin is and neurotransmitters are produced in your gut by the healthy bacteria.

So if your gut is unhealthy, because your liver is not producing the right enzymes and juices, then the levels of good bacteria in your intestines will be low and therefore your production of serotonin, melatonin, dopamine, GABA will also diminish. What else do we have to cover here? So remember that you have a hormone called progesterone And when progesterone levels are low, it's shown that anxiety levels actually increase because progesterone helps this brain chemical called GABA work better in your brain. Right? So, if your liver affects your progesterone levels because liver affects hormone levels, yeah, and your liver is sick or stagnant or toxic, then your progesterone levels will go down. When your progesterone levels go down, GABA, yeah, GABA, the brain chemicals that's responsible for anxiety that is not processed as well by your brain, so you will feel more anxious when your progesterone levels are lower because of liver stagnation.

Your liver also converts something called lactate back into glucose, right? lactate is this byproduct that your muscles produce when the use of energy and high levels of lactate are shown to increase levels of anxiety. So if your livers not working well, it will not change lactate back to glucose. So there'll be higher levels of lactate in your blood, meaning more levels of anxiety because of liver stagnation. Great. So if you want to find out more liver remedies, we have them listed in the online course it's on health Dr. Meat calm.

I'll just give you an idea of what we're going to cover will cover homeopathic remedies such as nuts, vermiculite or podium Sheldonian phosphorus, and we'll also cover Herbes such as milk thistle dandelion. I'll also talk about ways to reduce liver toxins such as having more fiber to pull out the toxins having less coffee, alcohol, and certain supplements that are antioxidants to help your liver recover. And things like turmeric, rooibos tea, all these good foods you can have also to help your liver work well. Great, so hopefully we'll see you on the course it's on health.dr Amit calm, the website is below so click it. Look at the other free videos that I have there that will help you heal your liver, your gut, your adrenal system and your emotions. And hopefully you'll have a lot of benefits from this.

So we'll see you soon and thank you for watching.