The Liver And Bile
Formation
Let's look
at what the liver does in slightly more detail.
As a
vital part of your digestive system, the liver secretes
bile, without which you cannot digest fats. Faulty fat
digestion can lead to associated problems with digestion
in general, affecting proteins and carbohydrates as well
as the fats.
How can you tell whether
this is happening? If you find that fatty foods disagree with
you, make you feel nauseous or even bloated, this may be your
problem. You may also find that your stools are pale in colour,
since the colour comes from the bile pigments, or that they
float or, in severe cases, that there is obvious fat in them
and they stick to the pan and become difficult to flush
away.
Bile also stimulates the
peristaltic action of both your small and large intestine and
thus helps to prevent constipation. This in turn helps to
prevent a number of other intestinal problems, and to reduce
the formation and absorption of several different toxins.
It helps to prevent
candidiasis, since having the proper movement along the
intestines reduces the risk of developing an environment in
which the candida mould can flourish.
Bile helps to prevent allergic, or food sensitivity, reactions
within the intestinal tract and so can reduce such problems as
gastritis, spastic colon and irritable bowel syndrome, all of
which can be due to food sensitivities.
Being constipated can lead to great pressure at the end of the
colon, particularly when you try to pass a bowel motion, and
this is a common cause of haemorrhoids.
If all that isn't
enough, by maintaining a healthy internal environment, proper
peristaltic action and liver bile function can help to reduce
the risk of bowel cancer.
When you are constipated a number of toxins can build up in the
digestive tract and become absorbed into the bloodstream. They
then have to be dealt with by the liver in its role as a detox
organ.
If your liver does not deal with them your body will try to get
rid of them in other ways. This may result in or aggravate skin
problems as you try to eliminate them through the pores. It may
put an excessive load on your kidneys. You will almost
certainly find grey circles under your eyes and white fatty
deposits in tissues such as the skin under your eyes and on
your limbs. If all else fails you may store the toxins in your
adipose tissues.
These are then
reluctant to break down, as the toxins would be released,
and so weight loss becomes difficult. Toxins in the
digestive tract can move back up the system leading to bad
breath, in which case no amount of brushing your teeth and
spraying with mouth deodorisers will solve the problem;
it's your liver you need to work on.
In fact an unhealthy liver can cause a whole range of problems
related to indigestion from top to bottom.
Once bile has been produced by the liver, it is stored in the
gall bladder, which then secretes it as necessary. If the liver
has not done a good job, or if you have not, in your diet,
supplied it with the correct raw materials, the composition of
the bile may be less than optimum.
This can lead to the
formation of gallstones, small accretions that build up within
the gall bladder, reducing both its ability to store bile and
to secrete it appropriately. These stones may be made either of
calcium salts, in which case they can be detected by X-rays, or
of cholesterol.
The latter stones are often missed, unless an
ultrasound is being done for some other reason, as they may
exist for a long time without causing obvious symptoms.
This is unfortunate, as they can still be causing problems and,
as with all health problems, the sooner you stop doing whatever
caused the problem and start doing things to help fix it, the
better.
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