The liver is a critical organ. It transforms toxins into waste that your body can safely expel via urine or poop. It’s a tough job, especially considering just how prevalent toxins are in our modern environment. With time and a lack of proper care to avoid those toxins, the liver becomes overwhelmed and sluggish. Instead of getting rid of toxins, it stores them in fat cells – especially around the belly.
That segues us neatly into our first sign of a sluggish liver.
Sign #1 – Unexplained Weight Gain
With a sluggish liver, calorie reduction and hours spent at the gym per week mean little; that weight will keep piling on. The body’s tendency to store unfiltered toxins in its fat cells is just one reason for this.
You see, the liver is also responsible for metabolizing fat. When it’s
running sluggishly, fat will simply circulate from the gut through bile
and right back to the organ.
Sign #2 – Allergies
A properly functioning liver creates antibodies that attack allergens. When it gets sluggish, though, the body stores those allergens. Your brain responds by producing histamine – a chemical meant to ‘mark’ allergens for removal. When too much histamine builds up in your body over an extended period of time, you wind up with allergy symptoms like headaches, itchiness and fogginess.
This point is especially important if you’ve only recently developed seasonal allergies; your body may have temporarily lost its ability to process those allergens.
Sign #3 – Chronic Fatigue
Dr. Edward Group says chronic fatigue is one of the most common symptoms of liver toxicity. Toxins disrupt muscle metabolism, producing aches, pains and physical fatigue. According to Dr. David Bushcer, this gets worse when a ‘backlog’ of toxins takes down the immune system.
Over time, this chronic fatigue can give way to moodiness, depression and angry outbursts.
Sign #4 – Excessive Sweating/Body Odor
The liver is kind of like a computer; when it gets overworked, it becomes sluggish – and hot. Because it’s such a large organ, it easily transfers that heat to the rest of your body, which attempts to cool itself by sweating excessively. This excessive sweating can lead to funky body odor.
Sign #5 – Stubborn Acne
All those pesky toxins that build up in your liver cause hormonal imbalances. Those imbalances, in turn, lead to skin problems like acne. No amount of external cleansing will get rid of acne that’s caused by a sluggish liver.
Sign #6 – Bad Breath
Do you feel like, no matter how much your brush your teeth and floss, your bad breath keeps coming back? As Dr. Frank Lipman reports, it could be a sign of liver malfunction.
Fetor hepaticus occurs when foul-smelling toxins accumulate in the body. It tends to make breath smell musty and fecal-like