Like I said earlier resting doesn’t necessarily mean stopping completely - e.g. a “resting heart rate” isn’t 0 beat per minute.
Yes, your liver can benefit from being given a rest, as in not having to deal with things like alcohol or chemotherapy drugs. Then it can repair itself, unless it’s beyond the point of repair.
I am on methotrexate for rheumatoid arthritis and was recently told to stop because my white cells were too high, but I know that one of the other reasons to temporarily cease my medication (which is a much lower dose of chemo) is that your liver is working too hard, so you give it “a rest” by not taking that medication for a while. My liver has always shown not just good but stupendously good levels, so I haven’t been told to stop for that reason, but it could theoretically happen if you didn’t inherit a hardcore liver like I did. And I probably still benefit from giving my liver a rest.
That’s because “resting heart rate” means the heart rate when the body is at rest (as opposed to being in voluntary motion), not the heart.
As our esteemed internist KarlGauss has already noted, the liver is always working. As is the heart. Except for cardiac arrest, of course.
But one can give the liver a break by not giving it too much work to do. So avoid alcohol and excessive doses of acetaminophen and other toxic substances as indicated. As I tell my patients “You can’t live without your liver. So knock that shit off.”
It is best to consistently keep your liver from having to deal with things that can damage it, such as regular excessive alcohol intake, or over-use of NSAIDs, or lots of junk and highly processed food and soda.
Muscles benefit from stress (to a limit) followed by rest. I know you realize this, but the liver is not a muscle. It does adapt to some specific stressors some … for example the liver can increase its ability to metabolize phenobarbital with prolonged exposure to. And in those specific cases chronic exposure of too high a dose can instead cause damage. But in general liver cells are well protected from chemical damage and the means of adaptation is not the same stress /rest cycle as with muscle cells.
Put it this way: lift a weight heavier than you are used to every other day and your muscles will get stronger; eat a big junk food meals full of crap every other day, or drink 10 beers every other day, and your live either does nothing different or, if anything, gets damaged and slowly a bit weaker. Even if the days in between were somehow absent of anything that stresses or damages the liver at all.
Milk thistle is a great little herb. But since we’re here chatting about it, I will add the warning that if you’re on any other medications - pharmaceutical or herbal - that are metabolized by the liver, milk thistle can mess them up. Usually it makes the liver metabolize the medication more quickly than it is usually expected to. So if you take it, make sure your doctor and your herbalist know you’re taking it, so they can adjust the dosing schedule accordingly.
John Clay, the mainstream medical industry has identified several different markers of liver stress, and they can be tested for and quantified. This is a good thing. It would also be the height of hubris to suggest we’ve gotten it all figured out and we’re never going to learn anything new about the liver or other markers that indicate potential problems. So I think there’s some middle ground between “if your liver function tests are fine, you’re fine!” and “your liver is trying to silently kill you with toxins.”
A short water fast once in a while is not likely to cause you harm, and may make you feel good. Is it necessary? Not by anything we know today. But doctors put people on water fasts all the time when they’re hospitalized, without causing harm. If you’re interested in doing a short fast, talk to your doctor about it first. I know you’re on some medications you take every day, and you want to be sure that fasting is okay when you’re on those medications. There are also some health conditions, like diabetes and inborn errors of metabolism, which make fasting extremely dangerous for those people. Best to check with your doctor first.
Well like I was saying before there is the concept of muscles “resting”. This doesn’t mean the muscles completely stop being used - they’re just taking it easy.
And you have yet to establish any relevance between this and the liver.
The heart isn’t “taking it easy”. It’s the rate the hearts beats when the body is at rest. The heart doesn’t need a rest, it just beats slower when the body is at rest.
So, JohnClay, you’ve now had opinions from genuine liver experts as well as more than one medical doctor who are all unanimous in saying that the whole concept is stupid.
Are you actually going to listen to any of these answers you’ve asked for, or are you just going to keep coming up with more excuses to believe what you want to believe no matter how many people tell you you’re wrong?
Isn’t it true that your liver doesn’t really get “tired” per-se, but rather gets damaged by thing like alcohol and other substances, and “giving it a break” is basically trying to reduce the load on it so that it can repair itself and regenerate any damaged or destroyed cells?
Yes, that is how muscle adaptation works: above normal stress followed by a recovery period of relative rest during which adaptation occurs. Inadequate time to recovery or too much stress prevents adaptation and increases the risk for damage instead.
Liver adapatation and damage does not work like that.
Certain compounds can induce various liver enzymes to ramp up; no stress-recovery cycle is required. That’s how liver adaptation occurs. Yes, too much of those compounds before adaptation has occured can also cause damage. Other compounds OTOH can damage the liver and will not improve liver function if given recovery periods in between or with repeat exposures. The liver can also replace killed cells to a significant degree as a form of recovery towards baseline function, like skin can.
In short the GQ answer is that no, there is no reason to believe that a day of only vegetables or a short water fast is good for the liver.
By the way, it’s silly to think that not eating will give your liver a “rest”. If you’re not eating, your liver is going to think you’re starving, and go into “oh, shit, we’re dying!” mode. It will begin liberating glycogen stores that are primarily kept in the liver and turning it into glucose to keep your body from dying. Amongst other things. This is basic liver biology 101.
Instead of “resting”, your liver will become the primary organ tasked with keeping you alive and kicking while you fail to provide it with the fuel it needs to do its job.
Are you seriously disputing the fact that one of the functions of the liver is to remove toxins from the body?
I think he’s pointing out that JohnClay is throwing words around that he doesn’t have the vaguest understanding of.
Completely anecdotal: if I don’t drink for a week, my hangover is much milder or non-existent when I do. If I drink a few days in a row, they are increasingly severe even if my intake is small.
Nor anyone else who throws around words like “toxins,” “cleansing,” “fasting,” “purification,” etc. in a health and nutrition context.
Replace “toxins” with “evil spirits,” “cleansing” with “exorcism” and “fasting” with “hiding in a closet so the demons can’t find me” and you’ve pretty much got it. They all add up to “purification” for the believers.
As noted, there are few if any real “toxins” in a normal diet (ethanol being the most common, and easily handled in short time by a healthy liver), and fasting sends the body into emergency, we’re-starving, sacrifice-whatever’s-necessary-to-stay-alive mode, about which nothing is to the good.
But I get the feeling the OP’s [del]co-religionist[/del] fasting expert advice trumps all of this.
This is pretty silly. Obviously you don’t follow the scientific literature if you’re equating fasting to religion/spirits/exorcism.
I think you’re going a bit too far in the other direction Amateur Barbarian. “Toxin”, while horribly misused and overused by the woo crowd, is a genuine term with a real meaning, and it’s an overstatement to say that there are little to no toxins in a normal diet. It’s just the overlap between real toxins that the liver actually works on and the list of “toxins” that the woo crowd think exist is very very small.
This is a very good point. While it one can define “relative rest” in terms of a dealing with a very particular substance, like phenobarbital, trying to think of what would be relative rest for the liver as a whole is tricky. Fasting is work for the liver in a big way; dealing with replenishing glycogen stores is work; no way to rest the liver’s synthetic functions … really the only rest one can offer the liver is to cease and desist from substances that harm it, which do not include most of what is covered under “toxins” in most of the circles that advise stuff like “cleansing” and fasts and that ilk.
Surreal what exactly do you include under the heading of “toxins” that the liver deals with?
I appreciate the fact that there is some reasoned debate regarding potential benefits of “intermittent fasting” in various potential incarnations. I personally am not so convinced but that is neither here nor there: the debate can be had using actual studies and arguing over the strength and relevance of the evidence in reasoned fashion. But surely you appreciate that most who discuss fasting in the context of cleansing and detoxing are not reading or referencing that literature and are thinking of “toxins” pretty much exactly in that evil spirits to be exorcised manner?
Smeghead can you please share with me exactly what the real meaning of “toxin” in a medical/physiologic sense is? Seriously I am not exactly sure what the exact definition is.
Re: Liver toxins.
From an interesting abstract here: Europe PMC
I’m still trying to access the full article.