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Liver Function Tests Dr. Claire Arcidiacono, ND The Liver Basics! As an Invite health nutritionist one of the most important parts of my job is to help people understand their blood work. In general I find that when it comes to blood work liver …
Subscribe Today! Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode. KRILL OIL, OR FISH OIL. PICK ON AND TAKE IT- PART 3. INVITEⓇ HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 626 Hosted by Jerry Hickey, Ph. *Intro Music* InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to the …
Digestive health
Written by Dr. Claire Arcidiacono, ND
For further questions or concerns email me at [email protected]
Last week we had an introduction to the digestive system. To recap, the digestive system is made up of the gastrointestinal tract and several organs that work alongside the tract. They interact through enzymes produced by the organs. These organs include the pancreas, liver and gallbladder. The digestive system has its own immune system and its own nervous system. Now that we’re all caught up, let’s dive a little deeper.†
The pancreas makes insulin and glucagon to regulate blood sugar. It produces enzymes that breakdown protein, fat and carbohydrates in the duodenum. These enzymes include the following: lipase (fat), amylase (carbohydrates) and protease (protein). When the food enters the small intestine (SI), this triggers the pancreas to release the enzymes via a duct system, ending in the Small Intestine. This duct system is a roadway that includes a large duct known as the pancreatic duct. It connects to the main bile duct which is where the gallbladder sends its bile. After traveling to the pancreatic duct, the pancreatic enzymes are sent to the small intestine, specifically the duodenum to breakdown food. The pancreas produces enzymes then sends them to the pancreatic duct where they then can enter the small intestine to breakdown food. †(1)
Connected to the pancreatic duct is the bile duct. (1) Bile from the liver helps the Small Intestines to process and digest fat as well as absorb our fat soluble vitamins. Picture a large fat molecule and a tiny enzyme, it can be intimidating for the tiny enzyme to break it down. Bile comes along, breaks it up into tiny pieces that are easier for enzymes to manage. But wait – is bile from the liver? What about the gallbladder? The liver produces bile and sends it into the duct network known as the bile duct. In the bile duct, it goes to the gallbladder which stores and concentrates bile. Later, it’s released into the duodenum via the duct network. The connection between the bile duct and pancreatic duct is important in the case if there are stones in the gall bladder, they can travel the duct network and get stuck. For example, if they travel to the pancreatic duct, the pancreatic enzymes can start to build up leading to damage of the pancreas. This is supposed to be just simple anatomy, so we can get more into gall stones later. Basically, the pancreatic duct and the bile duct end up joining together to form a funnel called ampulla of vater which funnels the enzymes and bile into the intestines. The pancreatic duct is what the network is called for the pancreas and the bile duct is the pathway for bile. The liver in addition to producing bile also makes all of the “chemicals” or hormones our body uses to do things. The liver has many other jobs such as detox. To summarize, the small intestines absorb the nutrients and the liver uses the nutrients to build. †(2)
It travels by a series of muscle contractions known as peristalsis. As you saw in the last blog, the GI tract is what is referred to as a closed system. Food for example stay in the GI tract and doesn’t just float around the body. Bacteria are also supposed to stay in the colon. We’ll go into more depth about leaky gut later on in this series.†
As for the digestive system’s own nervous system, it’s called the enteric nervous system. It controls things such as our body’s digestion, secretion of enzymes and any motility in the digestive tract such as peristalsis.† (4)
This is a general overview/introduction to the interesting and important topic of digestive health. You can also expect me to go more in depth about the digestive system having its own immune system in a future article. I’ll be talking about tests for gut health next week. To give you a little tease, let’s just say 70% of our immune system is in our gut!† (3)
IMMUNE SYSTEM, PART 1: THE BASICS – INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 491 >> Listen Now!
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/21743-pancreas
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/21481-liver
https://www.google.com/search?q=immune+system+in+the+gut&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
https://www.google.com/search?q=nervous+system+of+digestive+teact&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
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The incidence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is on the rise due to poor dietary intake and lack of exercise. This disease puts people at risk of developing additional medical issues and also severely impacts the body’s primary detoxifying organ.
milk thistle
Invite Health Podcast, Episode hosted by Amanda Williams, MPH
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The liver is a very important organ and it is critical to nearly all biological functions in the body. There is a high rate of chemical reactions that make the liver uniquely susceptible to chemical stresses and inflammation, as well as loss of energy balance and function, which can lead to a number of progressive liver disorders and diseases. None are more important than when we look at non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
This is very very important because when we realize that over the course of the last 15 years, liver-related deaths have jumped 65% in this country. When we look at mortality due to cirrhosis and liver cancer in the United States between the years of 1999 and 2006, it has gone up more than 65%. That is incredibly scary. We can look at a lot of different factors in terms of why the rate has gone up so high and so fast. Certainly diet plays a very big role into this when you look at the rate of metabolic syndrome in this country, which is a perfect example as to why this has become such a major problem.†
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We used to always think that the main threat was alcohol and alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. Then, of course we know about the different viruses that target the liver such as hepatitis, but we don’t often think about the foods that we’re eating and how detrimental those can be. We also have to look at other things because the liver is our detoxifying organ. We have to look at air pollution, toxins from what we put on our skin and toxins from what we put on our foods. This is why we have to take care of our liver as we get older. This is something that we don’t want to wait until something goes haywire and then decide to act.†
Obesity and that excess body weight can also contribute to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. 40% of adults are clinically obese in this country and that’s a major problem.
Learn more about various factors that can negatively impact your liver health by tuning into the full podcast episode.
So what should we be doing that would be beneficial for us? First, we want to make sure that we have a healthy lifestyle. We want to make sure that we have foods that have powerful antioxidants that can help the liver cells called hepatocytes be able to do what we need them to do and go through all those different phases of detoxification. Many people have probably heard of milk thistle. Milk thistle contains several natural compounds that have been shown to have the ability to basically defend the liver from injury. These compounds work by multiple different mechanisms in terms of enhancing liver function and leading to liver protection.†
When we think about milk thistle, I want us to look at some of the clinical science behind it. We know that milk thistle and its constituent silymarin in particular are very powerful ways in which the liver can utilize that as kind of a scrubber. It goes through and helps scrub out those bloated-up hepatocytes. Milk thistle itself contains all of these different compounds. It has really powerful antioxidants in it and these powerful phytochemicals including things such as silibinin and silymarin. It is these two constituents that really yield an enormous amount of antioxidant capabilities, which are important to fend off oxidative stress within the liver.†
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Tune into the full podcast episode to hear about studies discussing the benefits of milk thistle, silibinin and silymarin for the liver.
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