Can the liver be responsible for your acne?
Many people in the natural health field are convinced acne is connected to the liver function.
The liver is the primary detoxification organ in the body, along with the kidneys. When it’s exposed to more toxins it can handle (through unhealthy diet and exposure to pollution and chemicals) the liver can become congested. When the liver cannot cope with the toxic load other organs have to pitch it to the detoxification work.
Your skin is one of the secondary detoxification organs. Toxins that can’t be eliminated through the liver and kidneys are pushed out through the skin.
Toxins passing through the skin cause acne in two ways. First, toxins create an ideal environment for acne causing bacteria to thrive on your skin. Second, As these toxins pass through the skin they can cause inflammation and irritate it. Acne is an inflammatory skin condition and the more inflammation you have on your skin the more likely you are to get acne.
Liver congestion can cause acne also indirectly. The liver performs hundreds of functions in the body. One of them is regulating the levels of various hormones. Some of those hormones (such as insulin and androgens) regulate the sebum production in the skin pores. Too much of these hormones easily leads to excessive sebum and blocked skin pores.
Can the liver flush cure acne?
So if the liver affects acne, what can you do about it? Most natural health experts suggest liver flushing. The liver flush is a treatment that is supposed to flush the liver of excessive toxins. The procedure involves fasting for a day and drinking a mixture of olive oil and lemon juice. This stimulates the liver to release large quantities of bile and supposedly clear the congestion.
However there are few problems with the liver flush. While it’s normally safe, in case you have real gallstones it can send you into hospital for for emergency gallbladder removal operation. Drinking a cup of olive oil puts enormous stress on the liver, which might cause problems. Finally, liver flushing is a very unpleasant experience. I have spent more than once most of the night with my head in the toilet vomiting.
To add insult to the injury the liver flush is often not a very effective acne treatment. To see result most people need to repeat the procedure up to 20 times – and in this case one could argue that the results come from repeated fasting and clean diet than from the liver flush itself.
Luckily the liver is an unnecessary burden – you don’t need it to get clear. The human body is a self-healing and self-regenerating organism. Given clean diet, healthy lifestyle and few short detoxes (without any flushes or cleanses) it’s more than capable of removing the excess burden and congestion from the liver.
How you live your life day to day is what determines how your skin looks like – not how often you flush your liver.