Apparently the liver can remove toxins. Is it true that it is good to give it a rest sometimes - perhaps by a short water fast or only eating certain foods such as fresh vegetables?
BTW by “rest” I mean like how muscles can rest - they are still used a bit but not being stressed too much.
“Not being stressed too much” meaning what exactly? If it means not drinking to excess or excessive use of certain medications that are hard on the liver (certain pain medications, acetaminophen, steroids, etc.) then yes, it can be good to give the liver a “rest”. But if it means avoiding certain foods that supposedly “irritate” or “inflame” the liver, then no, giving the liver a “rest” is stupid and won’t do you any good. IMnoneprofessionalO.
I was talking about muscles - it means that muscles shouldn’t be doing heavy lifting non-stop for days at a time… instead they could rest. During rest they’d still be used a bit - e.g. for walking or rolling over in bed.
So then in at least some cases the liver should be given a rest.
So a drink (alcohol) is a problem but there are absolutely no foods that are hard on the liver?
The liver’s not a muscle. But as long as you’re not eating actually toxic foods…if you’re not eating poisonous mushrooms or overdosing yourself on iron or something, then no. If you eat a normal diet, you really don’t have to worry about hurting your liver.
Some sites say the liver is the “body’s main fat burning organ” (“regulating fat metabolism and carrying fat out of the body via bile.”). They say if it is overworked then it compromises the ability of the body to burn fat…
That is the kind of benefit I’m talking about - how good it is at burning fat depending on how overworked it is…
If it is untrue I wonder where those ideas came from…
nm
What are toxins, and how does the liver remove them?
Toxins are things that are bad for some reason and need to be removed from the blood. I think the liver puts them in bile.
And what is an “overworked” liver? Is it determined by blood tests? Or is it some nebulous, vague term without any concrete definition? How does someone determine if they have an overworked liver? If most people have overworked livers, that must mean liver function blood tests, which are very very common, are not capable of determining this.
Let’s take me, for instance. I’ve never fasted and I have blood tests every six months (as part of a migraine prevention program) which includes liver enzyme levels. They’ve never been elevated or at unhealthy levels. How do you explain this? Can a person’s liver be both overworked and fully functional? 
Ambivalid:
Apparently the liver has over 500 different functions…
Just because it is working in some ways it might not necessarily be “fully functional”… i.e. working to 100.0% capacity…
Maybe in the short term like how some people work more than 100 hours a week but they might be more likely to burn out.
I’ve had several family members with viral hepatitis, and it’s one of my areas of professional focus. The number one recommendation for supporting your liver is not to drink any alcohol. That’s been consistent, and stood alone as the only consistent recommendation, in both my family’s experience and the literature on and best practices in viral hepatitis management. “Should I take milk thistle?” both family members asked. “Couldn’t hurt, but probably won’t help” was the reply by hepatologists widely separated in time and space. “Don’t drink at all,” both added. I suppose, if pressed, they’d tell you not to eat poison as well.
Here’s from Mayo Clinic re: fatty liver in Type II Diabetes:
Oh, you’re gonna have to do better than that.
JohnClay, the questions people are asking you are the sorts of questions that a site giving you advice on “resting” your liver would also have answers for, if it were a responsible site. So far, the websites you’ve looked at apparently haven’t provided any evidence for the proposition that resting your liver is beneficial, you haven’t provided any evidence for the claim, and no one here has identified any evidence for it, including a couple people who - while possibly not experts - would be likely to have heard if there were any evidence for it. It is certainly possible that there are benefits to resting your liver that are currently unknown to medical science (or at least the SDMB). It is also possible that there are risks associated with a water fast or other method of “resting” the liver that are currently unknown to medical science (or at least the SDMB). I’m not an expert, but I certainly wouldn’t take medical advice from any cite on the internet (or any book or magazine article) that didn’t include references to widely accepted scientific evidence for whatever they are promoting or claiming.
“Eating fast food regularly has the same impact on the liver as hepatitis, study finds”
Eating fast food regularly could be considered a “normal” diet since it is quite common for a lot of people…
And having a rest from that diet (fast food) would be beneficial to the liver I think…
There you go! Now we have some evidence, and we can evaluate it. As far as I can determine, this study was done by one doctor who “published” the results on a TV talk show while promoting his new book, and was reported by the Daily Mail, a British tabloid that regularly publishes stories that make the staff of the National Enquirer shake their heads and wonder how a country can get by with such low journalistic standards.
Of course, it is entirely possible that despite their best efforts, the Daily Mail has accidentally published something both true and genuinely newsworthy, and avoiding fast food is already known to have several positive health effects. But I wouldn’t base any major lifestyle changes on this particular article alone.
I thought the active substance in milk thistle seed silymarin is actually used as a pharmaceutical in cases of liver damage or poisoning? I remember it being one of the few herbs that actually has evidence to back it up.
And removing metabolic toxins is one of the liver’s primary functions, but your liver is not going to be stressed by eating food, and it doesn’t need a rest. You can of course stress your liver by drinking excessive amounts of alcohol or other toxic substances.
The alternative medical concept of “detox” is woo and nonsense, but the liver along with the kidneys does process and remove toxins from your body.
One fact I’ve always found cool about the liver is that:
Your liver is always at work detoxifying and eliminating the poisons your own body makes as a matter of routine simply by being alive.
On top of that, it’s also always busy making zillions of critical substances ranging from blood clotting factors to transport proteins for hormones, and from the key blood protein albumin to the essential fuel glucose.
In short, the only way to ‘rest’ your liver is to be dead.
ETA: Ever notice that there’s kidney dialysis, artificial hearts, extracorporeal oxygenation (i.e. artificial breathing), but nothing along those lines for the liver?
There’s also tons of muscles in your body that work 24/7. Not everything needs rest.