Ep 169. Understanding Liver Function and How to Support It

In today’s episode' Kelly and Tiffany delve into the importance of liver health and how to support it. They explain the liver's functions, discuss common misconceptions, and share signs that your liver might need extra support. The episode also touches on relevant personal stories, the interconnectedness of liver health with overall wellness, and practical ways to support liver function, particularly for naturally-minded women.

00:00 Introduction

00:23 Episode 169 and Liver Health

00:48 Funny Memories and Conversations

03:05 Family Planning Discussion

10:54 Transition to Liver Health

12:58 Liver Health Importance and Functions

16:50 Signs Your Liver Needs Support

20:03 Ways to Support Liver Health

21:45 Nutrition and Hydration for Liver

24:01 Herbal and Supplement Support

28:24 Lab Work and Further Checks

29:24 Liver Health in Pregnancy

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to At Home with Kelly and Tiffany, where naturally minded women gather together as we pursue simplicity and confidence in health alternatives, so we can show up better in our busy lives and feel more at home in our bodies. Join your favorite home birth midwife duo for conversation, candor, and community. You are at home with Kelly and Tiffany I'm Kelly. I'm Tiffany. And today we are talking about, as you can guess from the subject title, liver support liver health, why it matters. What the liver even does, why you should care about it. Things you can do to support it. All of the things. It is episode 169. I don't understand how that's possible. It gives. We've just been doing this for awhile. It's, it is kind of funny to me to think about some of the first episodes we recorded. We used to. Bring, we used to record it. Video as well. There was a point when we recorded video. Yeah. And we would change shirts after each episode. If we batched, we would move. Couches around to make it look like we didn't batch record. I don't know why. Who cares. Nobody. Those are like in the vaults. I don't know where that video landed, but there we are. Okay. Speaking of 69. Yep. Let me just tell you. I had to call my husband yesterday. To get a code for getting something. I had to get access to something that he knew the code for. And he's like, oh yeah, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, the way you remember it is. And then he went on to say like the, the device for him remembering it was all around 69. And I was like, So immature, what's the matter with you? And he's like, well, that's how I remember it. And I'm like, you're such a. That's a dirty little man, clearly our brains work differently. Yeah. I don't create codes based off of sexual. And you windows. You know how to remember it. 69. And then now I will never forget the code. You want, so there is the liquidity to the the method. Yep. I have to say. But I almost never see the number 69 and don't automatically revert to like 13 year old, like, oh yeah. I remember the joke even before understanding what it was cause it was in bill and Ted's excellent adventure. That was like, they kept saying that was their favorite number. Me having no clue what that meant. And still saying that they're like 69. Yep. Had no clue. And then you learn what it is and as the kid, right. You're like, that is so vital. And then I was like, I wonder how many places I said that, and I have no clue how. It's terrible. So bad. We do have an episode on oral sex. If you interested in more of that. You can enjoy that. And then another. And a whole nother recording. Yes, you can. I wanted, before we talk about liver support and all of the things. I wanted to ask you a question because we get this, I've gotten this question a lot over the last month or so on Instagram about people kind of like looking at their family planning status, trying to decide am I done having kids or not? So one. You don't need us to tell you if you're done having kids or not, or anybody else. Right. But just getting the question of like, how did you know that you were actually done having kids? Because people are like, trying to decide, Hey, like I have. 2 3, 4 kids. And we're just trying to sort out like what's next in our lives. I'm not. I'm not feeling like I'm landing somewhere. For certain and just kind of like gauging other women's responses to how they knew they were done. I mean. Honestly. We had a lot of fights about it. And. I wanted to keep having kids. My husband was like, well, we already had two. And I was thinking one would have been good. Nothing. We didn't like the next one. But it was like, he was not interested in growing a large family and I was. I don't know about Wired's family, but I don't think I would have stopped. I think I would have had a lot of kids. But choosing, choosing to. Compromise and honor his strong feelings. I wouldn't say that I had strong feelings. I was just kind of like, yeah. I would just like to keep having kids That was a huge, huge, huge piece of marriage health for us. So we prioritized our, we prioritized our marriage and sorting through that together. Before we pray or bef instead of prioritizing our individual things that kind of came to like, well, If you feel really strongly about it, I'm not going to say we're not going to have more kids. But I would like, I would like to nod and I was in the same space. Like, I don't think I'm going to. Create an intense amount of conflict over me saying absolutely. We're having more kids. But it took us a few months to sort through that and having a lot of conversations about it. And it wasn't easy. That was really difficult. And I was not really accepting of it for probably a few years. I was still hoping that the vasectomy was unsuccessful. That if my period was a couple of days late, I'm like, oh, I got pregnant on accident. This is perfect. I did that for a couple of years. Before, like. Surrendering that to be like, no, this is, this is actually what's happening. And probably not going to have any more babies. And. That's it. That's the end of it. And I think that was a huge. Piece of being able to go to midwifery school. I could not have done both. I couldn't have continued to grow my family and become a midwife. So when I was, when I was becoming a midwife. I remember thinking like, this is my next little baby. Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of women are expecting to feel like. The clouds open and they have this answer of like, yes we are for sure done, or no, we are not, or that everybody's going to be on the same page. And that's how you'll know. And it's just not always like that. Right. And I always say that my experience, so I had two closer together and we felt very content with the life that we had with those two. There wasn't necessarily a huge yearning in my heart to grow our family. But it also wasn't off. It wasn't off the table because we weren't being as careful as one would be if it was off the table. Right. And so while it felt very content and I was happy with what we had when we did get pregnant with our third, which was by surprise. I know how babies are made. But it was a surprise just given my ovulation was doing wacky things. I was under a lot of stress and midwifery school. I was working out way too hard. My cycle was just not in a healthy place to be really trackable. So anyway, got pregnant. And after having her, and even that pregnancy, it was just harder in general. But after having her, I was like, oh, that's actually the feeling of completeness where you're like, Yep. I'm very much done. I, we do not want to grow our family. I feel very like. At peace with that idea. And I know not every woman gets to that place where they're like, I am at peace, we'd have done the thing. But that was my own personal experience of like, okay. Yeah. We could have been perfectly fine with the two. But the Lord saw that we needed our third, which I'm so thankful for. Great. But there was there was a big shift in my own heart of like, oh yeah. We're we're like actually done. Yeah. So like when, when clients or other women, or, you know, just even people on social media, ask us this question. I mean, obviously it's something that everybody has to kind of. Sort through and it's, it's really not common for the wife and the husband to be on the exact same page. I think it's more common that they have diff differing views, whatever that may be. Right. And the, probably the best way to go about it. It's just one kid at a time, not putting a limit on it, but fam. You know, couples who know that they want to have big families and they agree on that together. Like, yeah, you probably are going to do that. And couples who know that they probably only want one or two kids. Like that's, that's a, that's a good thing to talk about ahead of time. Like before you start family planning or to at least have conversations about. At some point. Be good to know what your partners strong feelings are about. That. At the time. Yeah. And just the normal kind of grieving process. Sometimes that women go through when they aren't done having kids, even if you were like, no, I feel really confident in this decision. Or yes, I can. Surrender this idea because my husband feels so adamantly against it or something. That there is an, I think there's a normal process of being like, wow, that was a sweet season in life. And now we're really onto another one. But. That feeling doesn't last forever either. I would. That is a hundred percent true and it's complicated. It's not just about, does my family feel complete? Is my husband at his capacity is, are the things that we want to do in the future can do sieve to having babies around again, like it's not all about that. Like some of it for me was. My last birth was the planned. The Syrian and like, is that going to be the end of my story? That's the end of my breathing stories is, you know, part of wanting to have another baby was like, I wanted X. I want to do over on that. Right. It's so complicated, but I'll also say that like nobody ever has another baby and looks at that baby and is like, whoops. One too many. Yup. I mean, there is, there is always, always, always. The joy and gift of another child. And so I always say if you're not sure, just have another baby. And then you will become more obvious to you as you collect more and more children, that there's a stopping point where your stopping point actually is. Yeah, for sure. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of insight. I think our clients in particular go through a lot of should we, should we, not, a lot of them are like, but I loved the experience of pregnancy and birth and all of that. And I'm like, that's great. But also that is a, that is a snippet of life. I had a view. So, yeah, there's just, there's a lot to kind of manage there. So hopefully that was a little insight into our own little lives and brains. On that one. But we want to get into liver support and before we fully jump in, I want to make another plug for earthly wellness. We've talked about them before. I have been using their lymph massage cream. And the love your liver tincture over the last few months, actually, since like the beginning of the year when I did a more thorough. Cleanse that I was doing at the beginning of the year to kind of get rid of some toxins and heavy metals and things. And I've just continued on with it because once you get into the rhythm of kind of habit stacking, some things are just like, I just got to keep going with what is working. But those are two of the items among others that they have that are super supportive pieces in supporting your liver. And we'll kind of get into some of what that actually means as we move forward. But I just wanted to kind of make a plug for them because we have a 10% off code. It's beautiful one. You'll find the link in the show notes. If you would like to kind of mess around with some of the things that they have. We've been using a bunch of other pieces as well. In our home, we just kind of keep collecting little things and trying new things out. And every single thing that I have used from them, we have loved my husband uses the slumpy, the sleep. Tincture one that they have, and he for sure can tell a difference, not potentially in his sleep, but like the, the. The downregulation that happens before bed, he feels the difference. And I'm like, that is well worth it for somebody who can often get like, kind of worked up towards the end of the evening. So mostly just my, my plug. They are a fabulous company and all of their items are just really trustworthy. Yeah. And I'm always surprised, I guess, just because supplement industry can be less. So. But I'm always surprised when I go to check out that it's like really reasonably priced stuff too. It's like, it's a very fair prices. It's very good formulations. It's easy to recommend. They, everything they make is wonderful. Yeah. So just a little, a little plug for them again, that all that stuff is in the show notes, but we are going to be talking about liver health today. So honestly, everybody should actually be talking about liver health. They should care about it focused on it for themselves. So I was discussing on this is kind of what created this idea of like, oh, we actually really do need to make an episode on this. I was discussing the idea of kind of connecting liver health to a disease. Disease process that someone on Instagram messaged us about. So this happens a lot and we're like not giving medical advice, but I'm like, here's something to look into. You know, go forward down your own rabbit hole as you would like. And so I was saying, wow, that's really interesting. I absolutely would look into your liver health and supporting your liver and all of that. And her response was I actually don't drink alcohol. So it couldn't, it couldn't be liver health. Like that's not a problem for me. And I was like, oh, that's really fascinating because I think that could be a potentially a common thing that we just associate poor livers with. Like, Alcoholics or somebody who's consuming too much alcohol or something like that, that it is so much deeper, so much more than that. Yeah. It's so funny. I mean, not to, not to rag on the person. Yes. I said it, but it does put it in perspective where you're like, oh yeah, we should talk about this more. Yeah, I will. And like, there's so much. That goes on. In the liver and it is. Probably the root cause of the majority of women, especially. Issues. Yeah. Health issues. Yeah. It's wild. So the liver is an organ technically, but it's also a gland as well. So the organ is like doing its thing. Right. But it's a gland because it actually makes proteins and hormones that other parts of the bodies actually need that they utilize. So it's doing more things than maybe we even thought that it does. So it technically does like hundreds of things, but what are some. Of the things that potentially may impact ladies listening. Oh, absolutely. There's just like, We should, maybe we should make an entire episode just on the functions of the liver. Yeah, right. Then go. You know, move forward to. How to support those things. So your liver. Colleen's your toxins. It takes harmful substances out of the blood. It's basically like a filter. It doesn't store them in your liver. Okay. Your liver is not just like an actual, like sludge sponge. It helps to get them removed and out of your body, through your detox pathways. So that's an important thing to know. It also helps you to get rid of old red blood cells. It makes bile, which is a fluid that helps the body break down food and like fat in particular, it metabolizes proteins, metabolizes, carbohydrates, and fat, so that your body can actually use them. The liver is a huge part of your body. Being able to utilize nutrients that you put into it. It produces substances that help your blood clot normally and regulate the amount of blood in your body. It also helps you store glycogen, which is an energy source. It helps you store vitamins that needed to be used by the body later. Those are some of the major, major functions. Yeah. And so the fact that most people have overlooked how to actually support their liver or even how liver health is connected with a ton of things that I mean, we're talking specifically about women's health anybody's health, right. But as we focus on women's health how many things kind of come up that we're like, oh, I wonder how your liver is functioning. And maybe we'll talk a little bit about labs in a little bit, but maybe not even necessarily showing up on lab work, but how is your body, how are we supporting the liver in doing what it's naturally supposed to be doing? So all of those things that it does, how can we support it in doing so? So you may be sitting here and being like, okay, that's really great. Liver is doing some things. How may you know that your liver may need some extra support? So. Even if you were dealing with none of these things that I mentioned, your liver's still could benefit from extra support. It always can. So if you're living in the modern world, You should be supporting your liver. We have talks and input from so many different places that your liver again, wants to help detoxify, wants to do all of these things. And so, Yeah, supporting it and doing so it was always a good idea. But if you were somebody with consistent headaches, which can just be like inflammation and stagnation, if you're doing the constipation bowel movements are a huge part of the detoxification process. We've talked about that so many times we care so much about how you poop. In any season of life, it matters so much, but your body can get really stagnant, even like good things like hormones, right. That those things can build up when that is not You know, happening at a normal rate insomnia. So if you're dealing with any kind of sleep issue for the most part that toxic burden on your body can interfere with your normal sleep rhythms, right? If you're somebody who's waking up during the hours of like one to 4:00 AM, some people will say like three to 4:00 AM. That's something to consider as well. Brain fog, more stagnation. You can think of a lot of things as like where in my body does something just feel like it's not moving well. That can be a sign that the era body needs a little more support in that. Anybody dealing with hormonal imbalances or any kind of digestive problems, we are like, Hey, that is something to consider. Always just kind of extra support on your for your liver itchy skin, which can just be a lot of like a buildup, toxic stuff, lots of stuff with your skin in particular. If you're dealing with any kind of swelling, high blood pressure as well, those things we can kind of come back and be like, okay, let's foundationally work on this, start supporting your liver. So that then we. Start working up from there. So it's not just like, oh, I'm dealing with itchy skin. Let me do something topically. Yeah. That can be helpful, but what's actually going on underneath everything. So that then that kind of support can spring forth, positive fruit for you. You know, do you know. Okay, so rhythms and thoughts that need to be considered as you're supporting your liver and not to, not for you to feel overwhelmed. But for you to recognize that there's options, there's many, many options and how you kind of like tackle this and it doesn't need to be all or nothing. There's definite, any amount of support that you give to your body holistically is going to have. Domino effect and. I think the, the really important piece of taking on some of these thought ideas in how we pursue wellness is. What is sustainable and that usually a small change over time. But some things to kind of just get you started is decreasing the toxin. Load decreasing the toxic burden on your body. So understanding endocrine disruptors and how those are in your environment, decreasing contact with problematic chemicals in the air or in your food or in water. In your personal care items and things in your home and just the purchases you make, the things that you have around you. Committing yourself to, to starting to get safer, safer food options, safer products around you is going to give your body. A break and having to process the toxins constantly. Yeah. And again, we always go back to like, okay, well, how does, how is physiology working? Right? What, when we talk about this in pregnancy and labor and birth and all of that, like what is normally going to happen? And then how come, how can we support that if something gets out of the zone there. And so, because like we were saying, there's just so many places where toxins can seep into our lives. The idea is not to take it down to zero because. You will not be able to, and that will drive you absolutely insane. But the idea is to figure out, Hey, where are some places that I can make some of these shifts? So the idea of not getting overwhelmed with it, but being like, Hey. What's in my what's underneath my sink. Let me just start there. Or maybe I don't want to change out all of my makeup quite yet, but my foundation goes over all of my skin. So maybe that's the one that I, you know, take out and swap for something like that. Right. Small steps. That eventually you'll be like looking back, oh, look at all this progress I've made, but it wasn't didn't happen over one weekend. Right? Some of the things to consider as well, you know, kind of mentioned food and water and all of that, but nutrition supporting your body through nutrition, happy gut foods, lots of protein, lots of fiber. This matters so much because the liver is going to be basically the metabolic powerhouse in your body. And so it's working very hard in order to support it, doing what it needs to do, that protein, that fiber, and just really focusing on gut. Health. All of those things interact with, I mean, every piece of what's going on in our body, since nothing happens in a vacuum, it's all interrelated supporting that piece. We'll absolutely. Then go ahead and support the liver to be able to go ahead and do what it. Is designed to do yep. And hydration. I know you had mentioned that, but there's ways that you can kind of like supercharge your water with a little bit of apple cider vinegar or lemon, both of those support liver cell function, they help to eliminate liver fat, which. You know, of course just makes it a more optimally. Charged Oregon and just allows the liver to function better. Yeah. We did an episode about a strength. Rebuilding, you know, like muscle mass and women and talking about the difference between building muscle and like losing fat, but how important that idea of fat around organs actually is because it's not, it's not about the outward appearance of the fat, right? It is about the burden that the fat around organs can put on that organ in order to be able to let it. Let it do its job efficiently. Right. And so that visceral fat around our bellies in particular. Very very common and can be a little stubborn, especially when we're not looking at it from that metabolic lens. And so, yeah, really. It really does matter for sure. Trying to just get out. There's no blood flow and there's no limp flow through fatty tissue. So. It's literally sitting there blocking things. From moving. Yes. So that it's like, right. If you're like, oh, apple cider vinegar, there's some actual research that supports like apple cider vinegar, lemon in your water to help see. Some of that elimination of that. So anything that you can do also beyond just that to support. That visceral fat will be important. You know, you have heard us many times talk about herbal support. So Nora tea that nettles oat straw, red raspberry leaf, alfalfa tea kind of mixture is a great one. Always even if it's just nettles, if you're putting something together yourself is always a good idea, but dandelion as well, dandelion infusion that sort of if you're looking for one thing to add in specifically for liver function, if you are. Struggling with the functioning of your liver. Dandelion is a great one. To really focus on, but the Nora blend, or even just nettles by themselves, incredibly nourishing, really helpful for organ functioning. That's something that's super simple. To add in daily, right? And so in the show notes, we also have a link to our starter guide for herbalism because sometimes that just feels like a lot to take on. If you're not somebody who uses herbs consistently, you might not realize it's actually incredibly easy to make your own kind of herbal infusions from home, set it and forget it sort of thing. And so that is in there in case you are somebody who is interested in such things. Yeah. And the next thing that you can start to digest is just getting moving 30 minutes of daily walking just for starters is just cover so many bases of our recommendations in general, but getting that good blood flow, getting your body. Moving, it's all a part of that good metabolic health and will absolutely impact your liver. Yeah. And so, you can also be considering certain supplements as well. Calcium and magnesium are kind of the top ones for liver support. So the liver is going to produce the major plasma protein in your blood, which is albumin. And so you may have heard this sometimes. We relate it mostly to talk about it a lot in pregnancy, as it deals with swelling, but it will bind to water and cat ions, like calcium to kind of like regulate the pressure in the blood. But a liver that is struggling will not produce enough. And so then that's going to affect the pressure within your own vascular system. And it's going to allow fluid to leak out of the blood vessels, which can create swelling. And other issues in your body. And then when those levels fall in that liver, that's just not able to produce enough, less calcium can actually remain in the bloodstream, which leads to issues with low calcium in your body, which can impact so many other pieces as well. Right. So we see how many, right? Like how many pieces are all actually interconnected. So why the recommendation to eat a lot of protein and move your body and support your system here, right? It, it comes together. To support so many other things that go just beyond quote, just liver function. Yeah. And I think like an important piece of that is just the foundational health pieces that you just end up hearing over and over again. And it's because it really is so vital stress impacts liver health, poor sleep impacts liver health. And so being on top of those pieces is only going to help you. Your liver actually like in the Chinese medicine model regenerate. It's overnight. And if you're missing sleep, If you're not, I think even if you're not getting into your REM by like 11:00 PM or something like that, your body is just not able to properly recover and. Help your liver to regenerate at those points. Some other things to be thinking about is just some daily rhythms that support liver health. And it's so easy to just add in dry brushing before you get into the shower or taking an Epsom salt bath once a week, or getting in your sauna or finding a sauna or just sweating in particular and finding any way to sweat, either outside in the hot weather, working out, getting. Getting in a hot bath, et cetera. And then red light also has some really good research backing its ability to help keep lymph flowing and support liver health that way. Yet we have an entire episode about red light support and sauna and sweating and all of that good stuff as well, and all of this right. Kind of interrelates with those things. If you are somebody who's like, okay, that's all great. But I kind of want some more like firm information about what's going on in my body. You absolutely can get some lab work, done, some blood work done to really check in on what is going on. And I will list out in the. Shown up to where that we recommend to kind of get those labs done. If you cannot find a provider who will run them for you. But a comprehensive metabolic panel prothrombin time, which is basically like how long it takes your blood to clot. Those two in particular can be really helpful in understanding how your liver's actually functioning. And so, like I mentioned in the show notes, you'll see where you can order your own labs which is they're actually a really great just cash pay price, really straightforward process. And I think it's extra helpful. If you are somebody who questions either your own history in a previous pregnancy with liver health or. It has something going on in your life that you're like, I feel like I should really know about this before I get pregnant. Absolutely. If you can kind of deep dive on this before getting pregnant. You your pregnancy and the health of your pregnancy and the risk status of your pregnancy and the issues that come up in your pregnancy will absolutely be impacted by your decision to kind of deep dive into this now. Yeah, I mean, during pregnancy, the liver undergoes a significant amount of changes to support your baby, to adapt to the increased demands on your body. And it plays a really key role in detoxification metabolizing. Regulating hormones and making it like completely essential for a healthy pregnancy. Yeah. All so many things come back to liver health and sometimes. The body doesn't send all of these signals until pregnancy it's like, oh, I'm, you know, this is the drop in the bucket that is like completely overflowing. And complications in pregnancy have been related to liver health in one way or another, like gestational hypertension, preeclampsia, HELLP syndrome even hyperemesis blood sugar regulation, gestational diabetes, Cola status. I mean the list. Those are all the main pregnancy complications that have some. Effect on how the liver is able to process and optimize health for you in your pregnancy. So such an important thing to know that supporting the liver in pregnancy. Can look a little bit different than what we mentioned. You'll have to speak with your care provider about safe things that you can do for liver support in pregnancy. But you can focus on some gentle liver support, like dry brushing, like lemon in your water, like exercising, eating good food, all of that. And we know that women who go into pregnancy with really healthy livers, prevent some of these disease processes, improve your outcomes for your pregnancy and your birth. They help you feel better. And just avoid complications in general. Yeah. And so that's like true in any part of life. Right. We see women who are like focusing on liver health and all of a sudden their periods feel better, or they're not dealing with their hormonal migraines or you know, the list goes on and how all of a sudden they're like, I can see, I can think more clearly, right? Like all of the things in my body are just working on all cylinders and so that it really can impact again, so much another reason that we just really wanted to make sure this episode got out. To you just as a starting point, now that you get to jump off from, do more research beyond the trajectory towards liver, just vitality and health. There's so many episodes even that we've mentioned already, but even other ones that we'll deep dive into women's health topics that kind of touch on liver health as well, because that impact is just so far reaching it. It has been woven in through many, many episodes in different ways. And then again, in the links in the. Show notes, you will find all kinds of good stuff. Everything that we mentioned. We do want to highlight the factor though that Tiffany and I have been working. So dang hard on this childbirth education class, that we are very excited, very, very soon to push out into the world. We do talk about liver health in pregnancy in that In that course, and it's going to be ready to be launched very, very, very, very soon. And the waitlist will get all kinds of good perks, including some information and early access to that course. So you will find the link to sign up for that in the show notes. We hope that you have like some great goodie that you can take away from this episode today, even if it's just like, I'm going to get to bed before 11 o'clock. I'm going to squeeze a lemon into my water. I mean, all of those little changes, they really do add up and create like a. A cascade of wellness, and we hope that you are able to take one little thing away from that today. Cascade of wellness. Cascade of wellness. I'm here for that. But we will catch you next week. And we're, we're chatting about preventing some birth complications, which again is probably going to talk about liver health. So here we, here we go.