If you want to improve your skin, good nutrition plays an important role since digestive health greatly impacts the health of your skin. But did you know that the liver has an important role to play in your epidermal issues? That’s right, the organ that’s best known for breaking down alcohol is directly connected to skin function.
According to traditional medicine, “If your liver is in harmony, the rest of the body will be in harmony”. Everything you consume is processed through the liver, so it’s important to keep your liver healthy. In this article, know how to nurture your liver for healthy skin.
Liver and the Skin
A distressed liver can lead to dry skin, itchiness, acne, dull or sagging skin. This is because the liver is one of the main pathways for elimination of toxins from your body. If it is unable to perform its detoxification rule, the buildup of toxins can manifest as skin imperfections.
What you drink, what you eat and even the air you breathe in contains environmental toxins that get filtered through the liver. As a result, the overload of harmful substances including inflammatory foods, pollutants or alcohol may show on your face. Here’s how the health of your liver affects your skin:
1. Toxin Overload
When the liver is unable to clear the toxin load and is congested your body tries to exert effort to purge these toxins through other pathways such as your pores. Your skin is a direct reflection of what is going on inside your body. For instance, acne flare-ups often occur during a cleansing fast as you detoxify your body and get rid of free radicals.
2. The Fat Factor
An important function of the liver is to break down food and store excess energy as fat. When there is too much exposure to toxins, your liver tends to wrap these toxins inside fat and stores it. When this happens, it can disrupt the production of oil and sebum.
Sebum is the oily, waxy substance produced by the sebaceous gland that coats, protects and moisturizes the skin. The raw material for this sebum is triglycerides and fatty acids (57%), wax esters (26%), squalene (12%), and cholesterol (4.5%).
If the raw material that your body uses to produce sebum has too many fat-soluble toxins, a lot will end up in the sebum. Especially if you are not consuming healthy fats, it can have a great impact on your skin. The thicker and the more toxins in your sebum, the more likely it is to clog your pores. As, a result it can lead to several skin conditions like Acne, Rosacea, Seborrheic dermatitis, Psoriasis.
3. Too Much Bile in the Bloodstream
Itchy skin can occur due to liver damage and when too much bile is present in the blood. When the bile duct is blocked, the bile stagnates and flows back in the bloodstream. This can accumulate under the skin and lead to excessive itching.
Symptoms of a blocked bile duct may appear slowly soon after the onset of bile duct inflammation in the liver and often start with itchy skin.
4. Abnormal Hormone Levels
Your liver is also responsible for metabolizing hormones such as estrogen. If the liver function is impaired, it can lead to estrogen dominance. This not only leads to hormonal imbalances but also can manifest itself in the skin.
Spider Angiomas or spider-like capillaries can become visible in the skin due to high levels of estrogen. These unsightly veins often appear on the face and legs because of the enlargement of the arterioles, the branches that stem from your arteries to your capillaries.
In addition, blemishes and hyper-pigmentation also tend to appear on the face when the liver is sluggish and there is too much estrogen in the system. This causes a substance named tyrosinase, an enzyme containing copper, to produce more melanin and causes blemishes on the face or the entire body.
Red, burning itching hand palms, also known as palmar erythema, can be a sign of liver damage. This condition occurs as a result of abnormal hormone levels in the blood.
How to Nurture Your Liver for Healthy Skin?
Most convention treatments for Skin problems use creams or drugs in order to suppress the symptoms rather than address the root cause of it. If the skin is treated with strong steroid creams or antihistamine drugs to stop a rash, for instance, the toxins are suppressed deeper into the body and cannot escape through the skin.
This may only worsen the situation and cause health problems to appear on a deeper level in the future. The vast majority of skin problems can be rectified with a natural approach to strengthen the liver detoxification function:
1. Diet
Support your liver detoxification pathway with a healthy diet that is rich in fiber, protein, and healthy fats. Supply it with anti-oxidants, omega-3 fatty acid and a generous dose of protein to mop-up the toxins and release it out of your system. Read in detail about the diet for liver detoxification here.
2. Sweat it Out
The more you physically exert yourself, the more you perspire and break a sweat. Thereby, you help your liver to release out the toxins through your sweat glands. This will aid the liver and your skin to be healthier.
3. Ayurvedic Panchakarma Treatment
Cleanse and detoxify your system to keep your skin supple and healthy. This five-treatment process eliminates the toxins effectively and rejuvenates the liver to function at an optimal level. Plus, it has an indelible effect on your skin, body, and mind.
4. Drink plenty of Fluids
Hydrating yourself with plenty of water is not just healthy for the skin but also your liver as it breaks down toxins and releases it out of urine. Drinking plenty of water will help to support your liver. You can also sip herbal teas, warm water, lemon water in between your meals to speed up the function of your liver.
There is more to compromised liver health than its typical symptoms. Your skin can be a tell-tale sign of your liver function. Therefore, rather than opting for quick fixes for your skin problems, you can often get to the root of the problem by keeping your liver healthy.
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