Five Tips to Improve Your Liver and Gallbladder Function
In today’s article we invite you to learn five ways you can improve your liver and gallbladder function. Are you ready to take notes?
Your liver and gallbladder are two related organs that have a few functions in common. Both are located on the right side of your abdomen, and are connected by tubes known as bile ducts.
The liver is undoubtedly the organ that plays the most vital role in your body, by removing toxins, synthesizing hormones and enzymes, maintaining glycogen stores, and managing iron, copper, and vitamin A.
It’s also responsible for destroying dead virus or bacteria cells with the production of Kupffer cells, which are very similar to white blood cells.
Meanwhile, your gallbladder is responsible for storing the bile that the liver secretes. This helps enhance your digestive system and allows you to absorb nutrients more efficiently.
Because of this, it’s important to lead a healthy life and watch your diet so that your liver can continue to carry out its important functions, and assist the gallbladder in the optimization of your digestive system.
1. Treatments to improve your liver function on an empty stomach
Read also:
Detox Your Liver with Natural Remedies
A glass of warm water with lemon juice
It’s important that the water is always warm to help facilitate the detoxing process. Just add the juice from half a lemon to a cup of warm water and drink it first thing in the morning before breakfast.
You can do this for four consecutive days, and combine it with the next treatments we’ll tell you about.
A tablespoon of olive oil with a few drops of lemon juice
This is something that we recommend all the time on this blog. The combination of olive oil and lemon helps stimulate the production of bile, while providing important minerals to the liver to strengthen it with the addition of vitamin C.
A glass of organic apple juice
Apples contain malic acid, a mineral that’s great to improve your liver and gallbladder funtion. In this case, to make your detox more effective, we recommend drinking two glasses of organic apple juice on an empty stomach for two days, and wait a half hour before eating breakfast afterwards. It’s well worth trying it.
2. Grapefruit, garlic, and ginger
This combination might seem a little stronger than it appears thanks to its powerful ingredients. Garlic and ginger alone have excellent anti-inflammatory properties, and when combined with the high vitamin C and mineral content of grapefruit, they make an excellent way to improve your liver and gallbladder function.
Pay attention to the following recipe:
Ingredients
- 1 grapefruit
- 5 g of fresh grated ginger root
- 1 clove of garlic, minced
- One cup of water (200 ml)
- 1 tablespoon of honey (25 g)
Preparation
- The first thing you need to do is grate the ginger very finely. Then mix it well with the minced garlic clove.
- Juice the grapefruit.
- Add all the ingredients to your blender: the grapefruit juice, honey, ginger, and crushed garlic. Process until smooth and add the water to get a homogeneous liquid. Let the mixture stand for 15 minutes.
- Drink this beverage two times a week, before going to bed.
- Remember that your liver performs the majority of its cleansing functions during the night while you sleep, with the help of your lymphatic system. This simple remedy helps optimize its function.
Also read:
Discover 7 Benefits of Ginger
3. Say “yes” to dandelion tea
If there ever were a medicinal plant that helps improve your liver and gallbladder function, it’s the humble dandelion.
Dandelion improves digestion, increases the body’s production of bile, optimizes liver function, and fights inflammation, headaches, and general malaise.
The best time to enjoy a cup of dandelion tea is 10 minutes after your main meal of the day. Just prepare it using 10 grams of dandelion with a cup of water, and sweeten it with a little bit of honey. It’s delicious!
4. A revitalizing salad for your liver and gallbladder
Here’s what you need:
Ingredients
- 50 g of red cabbage, cut into pieces
- 50 g of finely chopped green cabbage
- A little grated carrot, fresh and raw
- 50 g of spinach, chopped
- 3 nuts
- ½ avocado
- A little chopped parsley
- 8 raisins
- Some fennel
- ½ pear
Preparation
Wash all the ingredients thoroughly and chop them very finely. You want all the fruits and vegetables to be fresh and raw, because they provide the most benefits in this form.
Add all the ingredients to a bowl and season with a little bit of olive oil and a few drops of lemon juice. It’s delicious!
5. Barley water
How can you make it?
Ingredients
- 25 g of barley grains
- 1 cup of water (200 ml)
- 2 g of cinnamon
- The juice of half a lemon
- 1 tablespoon of honey (25 g)
Preparation
Start out by rinsing the barley grains using a strainer.
Bring the water to a boil, and add the barley grains to it. Cook them for at least half an hour, or until you notice that the grains are becoming tender.
When they’re ready, strain off the water and separate it from the barley. Sweeten this liquid with cinnamon, honey, and finally add the juice of half a lemon. Try drinking this warm in the afternoons. It’ll make you feel wonderful.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- American Liver Foundation. (2017). Liver wellness.
liverfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Liver_Wellness.pdf - Cleveland Clinic Staff. (n.d.). Liver disease.
my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17179-liver-disease - Johns Hopkins Medicine. (n.d.). Liver: Anatomy and functions.
hopkinsmedicine.org/healthlibrary/conditions/liver_biliary_and_pancreatic_disorders/liver_anatomy_and_functions_85,P00676 - U.S. National Library of Medicine. (2016). How does the liver work?
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0072577/
