Charlotte Libov (Miami Beach, FL) is an award-winning health book author and a pioneer in the field of patient advocacy. Her first book, The Women's Heart Book, was among the first to call attention to the problem of heart disease in women, and was made into a groundbreaking PBS special - Women's Hearts at Risk - in which she appeared as part of an expert panel. She is also the author of the following books: The Cancer Survival Guide (ASJA's Self-Help Health Book of the Year 2017), A Woman's Guide to Heart Attack Recovery, Beat Your Risk Factors, 50 Essential Things to do When the Doctor Says it's Heart Disease, and 50 Essential Things to Do When the Doctor Says It's a Migraine. A popular motivational speaker, she has given talks for Toyota, IBM, and the Biotech International Organization, and has appeared as a keynote speaker for the US Army War College, the American Heart Association, Duke University Medical School, Women in International Trade, and at other hospitals and organizations throughout the country.

Libov's byline has appeared regularly in Newsmax magazine, [...], [...], [...], [...], [...], [...], [...], and many other top websites and publications. She is also a former New York Times regular contributor. Articles about Charlotte Libov and her books have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Ladies Home Journal, The Times-Picayune, and many more; and her TV and radio appearances include: PBS, NPR, Fox Morning News, Today in New York, NewsChannel 8 (Washington TV), CNN Radio, CBS Radio, USA Today-Sky Radio, The Jim Bohannon Show, and many more.

Libov has a bachelor's degree with honors from the University of Connecticut and a master's degree in mental health counseling from the University of Oregon. She served as a spokesperson for the Tea Council of the U.S, her photography is exhibited in gallery shows and is also in private collections, and she is a singer.

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The author lives & works in the Miami metro area.

The Liver Cure: Natural Solutions for Liver Health to Target Symptoms of Fatty Liver Disease, Autoimmune Diseases, Diabetes, Inflammation, Stress & Fatigue, Skin Conditions, and Many More

Table of Contents

Part 1: YOUR LIVER AND HOW IT KEEPS YOU HEALTHY

Chapter 1 - Your Mighty Liver

The liver is the most overlooked and misunderstood of all our body's organs. Because of the sudden, potentially fatal consequences of heart attack and stroke, everyone's attention is always focused on the heart or the brain (stroke), but without a healthy liver, you ultimately cannot survive. Still, until something goes wrong with the liver, it's usually completely overlooked. This chapter will describe the football-sized liver, it's location, its parts, and provide a very brief view of its main function, which is digesting food and ridding your body of toxins, but also get the point across that this is only a tiny portion of the jobs that this miraculous organ does.

Chapter 2 - Your Liver: Jack of All Trades

Of all your organs, none does more for you than the liver. The heart is basically a pump, the lungs enable you to breath, but the liver does a myriad of diverse tasks, and can magically switch from one to another seamlessly.

Here is a rundown on six vital functions your liver performs:

• Digests food - Manufactures the digestive juice called bile which helps break down fats and vitamins so your body can use them
• Extracts nutrients - Extracts the nutrients from foods, such as vitamins and minerals, and stores them until needed
• Fuels your body - Stores about a day's supply of glycogen (blood sugar), releasing it into your blood when needed
• Removes toxins - Filters unhealthy materials from food so they can be excreted
• Safeguards your body - Finds, catches and filters out harmful bacteria in food
• Sharpens your brain - Filters out toxins that could cloud your thinking, and ultimately cost you your life.

Chapter 3 - Your Liver Makes Drugs Work

One of the most important functions of your liver is that it processes drugs. The body must be able to process (chemically alter, or metabolize) drugs, and just as your liver helps metabolize food, it also processes medications.

Liver disorders affect the metabolizing of drugs in the following ways:

• How much of the drug is absorbed from the intestine
• How quickly and completely the liver metabolizes a drug - for example, changing the drug into an active form or into an inactive form (a form that has no effect on the body)
• How much of the drug is transported throughout the body
• How quickly the drug is eliminated from the body
• How sensitive the body is to a drug's effects

For instance, a chronic liver disorder can make people more sensitive to the effects of a drug, even when the amount is not increases. In addition, the liver acts on the brain, and brain function can deteriorate when such sensitivity is increased.

Part 2: THE DANGERS FACING YOUR LIVER

One of the major reasons why you need to take action now to protect your liver is because it is assaulted everyday by factors in our modern-day life.

This section will cover the following dangers:

Chapter 4 - The "All American Diet" is a Liver Killer

The American diet, known also as the Western diet, is a liver killer. High in sugar and fat, and has been linked to the prevalence of chronic disease in the U.S., mainly because it results in chronic bodily inflammation, which is not visible to the eye, but which results in aging and damage to the body's organs. The vast majority of research has focused on the effect of inflammation on other parts of the body, particularly the heart, and brain (chronic inflammation is linked to coronary heart disease, diabetes, insulin resistance, and even Alzheimer's disease. But this may be changing, especially with the publication in 2017 of a paper in the American Journal of Pathology, which found that mice fed a Western diet developed inflammation of the liver.

This clearly shows that, to keep a healthy liver, people should avoid:

• Fatty foods
• Starchy foods
• Sugar
• Salt

Chapter 5 - Excitotoxins Poison Your Liver

The liver plays a Herculean task of nourishing and protecting the body, but today's modern life damages it in many ways and a key one is through the consumption of excitotoxins.

Excitotoxins are food additives commonly found in processed and packaged foods, which make up the majority of the American diet. This chapter will explore the most common excitotoxins and how they damage the liver. They include the following, as well as a fourth, high fructose corn syrup, which will garner special attention, as it is blamed for the epidemic of fatty liver disease.

These excitotoxins are commonly found in the processed & packaged foods we eat:

• Aspartame: This artificial sweetener is a neurotoxic drug, which means it is poisonous to the nervous system. It is a molecule composed of three components, aspartic acid, a methyl ester which turns into methyl alcohol and phenylalanine. Persons with cirrhosis of the liver are at increased risk because they may be unable to metabolize aspartame and its breakdown products
• MSG: A very common flavor enhancer added to Chinese food, canned vegetables, soups and processed meats. Glutamate is its main component, which is known to damage the liver.
• High Fructose Corn Syrup: High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a type of corn syrup to which enzymes have been added to change the glucose into fructose, a form of sugar that adds sweetness, but is also more easily metabolized by the body, and also easily converted by the body into excess fat. This ingredient is believed to be fueling the epidemic of fatty liver disease.

Chapter 6 - How Smoking & Alcohol Damage Your Liver

• Smoking: Most people think of smoking's main hazard is to the lungs, but the truth is that the thousands of poisons contained in tobacco smoke damages every organ in the body, including the liver. Smoking can increase the risk of both liver cancer and cirrhosis of the liver. The toxic chemicals in tobacco smoke can cause inflammation and eventual cirrhosis. Smoking also promotes the production of cytokines, chemicals that cause even more inflammation and damage to liver cells. This chapter will also cover the emerging science behind vaping, which is sending some users back to cigarettes to cope with an enhanced nicotine addiction, and questions that are being raised about cannabis. As smoking "weed" becomes more common, there are concerns being raised, including those in a recent study on CBD oil, in which researchers at the University of Arkansas found raised liver toxicity in mice.
• Alcohol: it's no surprise that too much alcohol results in cirrhosis, as this is a known disease of alcoholics. But what about people who are not alcoholics and only imbibe socially. When it comes to your liver, they don't necessarily get a free pass. For one thing, people who imbibe in alcohol often think they can mitigate its effect by eating greasy food, but this only compounds the insult to the liver. Alcohol is extremely hard on the liver, and people who say they drink "socially" may actually be taking in damaging alcohol than they realize.

Chapter 7 - Environmental Liver Toxins

Even the air we breathe can damage the liver, which makes living a healthy lifestyle of even more paramount importance.

These are known to poison the liver:

• Pollution: Polluted air is a known risk for liver damage. Pollution is linked to liver fibrosis, metabolic disease and liver cancer.
• Chemicals: Chemicals you may be exposed to on the job can cause liver injury. Common chemicals that can cause liver damage include the dry cleaning solvent carbon tetrachloride, a substance called vinyl chloride (used to make plastics), and a group of industrial chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls.
• Pesticides: Exposure to pesticides causes liver damage and can raise the risk of diseases including liver cancer, where recent research revealed it may hike risk by 71 percent. A recent study also linked exposure to glyphosate, the major ingredient in the popular weed killer "Roundup," to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Exposure to the herbicide paraquat can result in toxic chemicals throughout the body, primarily the lungs, liver and kidneys.

Chapter 8 - How Medications Damage the Liver

One of the major ways to safeguard the liver is to be very aware of the potential of certain drugs to damage it. Such damage can take the form of liver failure, a serious condition for which there is no fix. Some 2,000 cases of liver failure occur each year, which are directly due to the effect of medications. Sometimes medications are life-saving and cannot be avoided, but too often, liver damage can occur because too much medication is unthinkingly consumed.

The book will cover these 10 medications & their impact on the liver:

• Acetaminophen (Tylenol)
• Amoxicillin/clavulanate (Augmentin)
• Diclofenac (Voltaren, Cambia)
• Amiodarone (Cordarone, Pacerone)
• Allopurinol (Zyloprim)
• Anti-seizure medications
• Isoniazid
• Methotrexate
• Statins (cholesterol lowering medication)

Part 3: LIVER DISEASE

Liver disease is an umbrella term, encompassing any medical condition, toxin or other substance or material that affects the liver's ability to function. This chapter will explain that there are two basic types of liver disease, acute and chronic, and will also cover general signs, symptoms, and ways that health care professionals use to determine whether liver disease is present.

This chapter...