kbuzbee wrote:Liver is interesting, isn't it? I mean supposedly liver has all these health benefits. But it's like the body's toxic waste dump. I never really understood.
Being vegan, it's not really an issue I have to deal with but it is interesting.Ken
It is common to hear the liver compared to the oil filter on a car, if it worked like that you would die when it was full.....
The liver as a chemical processing plant is a better analogy, handling toxins is one function, and in the case of most toxins renders them inert to be sent out the kidney.
Some greens, roots, fish, nuts, liver, it's all good. Liver is vitamin dense.
springnr wrote:It is common to hear the liver compared to the oil filter on a car, if it worked like that you would die when it was full.....
The liver as a chemical processing plant is a better analogy, handling toxins is one function, and in the case of most toxins renders them inert to be sent out the kidney.
In theory I agree with you. In practice I think the liver (today) tends to get overloaded and it's capacity for excretion is constantly exceeded. Instead it stores those toxins in surrounding fatty tissue, waiting for the toxin load to lower to a level where it can "catch up". Sadly, generally, that time never comes. Obviously, the better the environment/diet an animal is raised in/on improves the situation.
On a scientific level, cells don't know the difference between vitamins that come from food vs. supplements.
Yes they do because they are not the same in many respects. For example vitamin E has many actual forms, however when you take a supplement you mega dose one form which can actually cause your body to be deficient in it because it will note the excess of one form and stop absorbing the others broad spectrum. This is why there is a huge difference in the studies which look at a diet which is high in vitamin rich foods vs one that attempts to just supplement. Two of the most obvious are that free radical scavenger vitamins, while passing almost any chemical test you can name and showing benefits, if taken as supplements actually reduce life expectancy - while diets high in them enhance it and the use of poly unsaturated fat supplements which are the rage now which show no benefit. The simple fact is that we do not know enough to be able to manufacture what we need for optimal health aside from the most basic of things. In order to sort this out you have to look at the reviews of the work which are research articles which take huge scans of all data, compile it and look for significance. The medical supplement industry is really monetary driven, almost as bad as the supplement industry in bodybuilding. If you want to actually know something you have to take the time to dig into the literature, if you just skim the top you are almost guaranteed to get what has money behind it.
I never really understood.
