How To Detox Your Body Without Juicing A Thing

Unlike your car, you can’t send your body in for regular servicing to replace ageing or faulty parts. Yet, your lungs take in the same stuff your engine does, and your liver and kidneys can become as gummed up as any oil filter.

These organs, along with your gastrointestinal tract and lymphatic system, cleanse your blood and sift out waste. Ignoring them can lead to everything from hypertension to asthma.

But while you can’t do much for your lymphatic system – it’s self-cleaning – you can take steps to keep the other four clear.

YOUR LIVER

In addition to processing booze, this 1.5kg multi-functional gland – the largest in your  body – performs at least 250 duties. Primarily, it filters bacteria and pollutants from your blood. It also produces bile, a viscous goo that breaks down fat for digestion and absorption.

“These functions begin to suffer when alcohol injures your liver or a poor diet causes extra fat to build up in it,” says Dr Paul Martin, chief of hepatology at the University of Miami. When fatty liver occurs in people who don’t drink heavily, it’s associated with the same risk factors as those of metabolic syndrome: obesity, diabetes and high triglyceride levels.

DETOX: Exercise more
Hitting the gym for an extra 10 minutes a day helps ensure your liver stays on top of its responsibilities. In a 2009 study in Hepatology, people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease who increased their exercise by 60 minutes a week for three months, reduced their levels of four enzymes that indicate liver problems. “Exercise removes fat from the liver,” says study author Dr Jacob George, a professor of gastroenterology and hepatic medicine at the University of Sydney.

But you can easily undo your gains if you drink too much. While the occasional beer is fine, avoid binges offive or more drinks on a single occasion. And be careful about what you consider to be “a drink”.

One standard drink contains around 18ml of alcohol, but a 2008 study from the Alcohol Research Group of the Public Health Institute in the US found that in bars, the average glass of wine contains 43 per cent more alcohol than the 18ml indicated. The average draft beer has 22 per cent more, and mixed drinks contain 32 per cent more.

So even if you limit the number of drinks, you could still be imbibing more alcohol than you intended to.

Continue reading the full article on Men’s Health.

Originally published by Men's Health Singapore