Hello and welcome to Chaos to Calm podcast episode number 54. I'm Sarah, The Perimenopause Naturopath your guide through the journey of perimenopause.

If you're over 40 and feeling like you're changing hormones or hijacking your mood. Energy, weight, and you want to change that in a holistic way, then this is the place for you, my friend, because each episode I share with you my views on what the heck is happening in your body, why you're feeling the way you are and what you can do about it.

With actionable advice to help you feel more calm in control, less stressed, and more comfortable in your body. I'm so glad you've joined me today. Thank you for sharing your time with me. We're going to dive straight into today's topic to help you start shifting your perimenopause experience from chaos to calm.  Today, we're diving into a topic that often flies under the radar, but actually is really crucial for a smooth perimenopause. And you might be feeling the impact of it being less than optimal already. If you're feeling constantly tired, struggling with weight gain, unpredictable mood swings, maybe some odd rashes, new food sensitivities, more PMS, rage, heavy bleeding, waking up at 2am  changes in your cholesterol levels. 

If you said yes to any of these, then those common perimenopause symptoms might have you pointing the finger of blame at your hormones, but the key to transforming your health  and work and resolving those symptoms could be something a little bit more unexpected, not something you might first think about, and that is your liver. 

So for many women that I work with, the first time that they think about their liver or that they might need to support it in some way is when they're shocked by a diagnosis of fatty liver disease in their forties. And it's surprising sometimes because they haven't considered their liver health, especially not in the context of hormonal health and perimenopause symptoms, or even if they have, in their fertile years in their twenties and thirties. So many of you don't drink excessively, which is what lots of people associate with fatty liver. I know this feeling all too well, because in my early forties, despite having being pregnant or breastfeeding for like 12 years prior to that. And so consuming very little alcohol in that time, I was diagnosed with fatty liver disease and I was like, what  I don't drink.

I don't drink a lot. I didn't drink every day. I was lucky to even drink. One drink once a week.  But then, I knew there was lots of other reasons for fatty liver. Even though I knew that I was still quite surprised that I had it. And we're going to talk about some of those things today.  But for me, the culprits at the time were insulin resistance, chronic stress, and a diet that was really heavy in bread, crackers, and coffee.

And, this working out your unique blend of triggers or why this has been happening for you, why your liver isn't working optimally, and then being able to make targeted changes in your food and your lifestyle. That's when you have the opportunity to reverse the condition. So it is reversible there as well. 

But I'm not necessarily here to talk about fatty liver today. Even though it is part of caring for your liver,  thinking about  the topic of this  podcast when I was just  had liver in my mind, which is such a massive topic. I started thinking about and wondering how many of you might be unknowingly sabotaging your hormonal health and increasing your perimenopause symptoms by hindering your liver's ability to support your hormonal health.

And then I was like, I wonder, If anyone knows how important their liver is to their perimenopause experience,  and then, when you think of your liver and caring for your liver, you might think I'm going to do a detox. Cause we all grew up in the era of the lemon detox diet and a million other detox diets marketed to us.

And you might think that that's your best option to help support your liver. We're going to talk about that today,  because my answer is not going to be probably what you think it would be.  So I wondered, did  that the liver plays a massive role in balancing your hormones? I have touched on it a little bit when I talked about the gut and hormone link in an earlier episode. 

But I bet you didn't know it helps with weight loss either. And so lucky you, now that I've gone down the rabbit hole of what could I cover off with when I'm talking about the liver, I got a whole bunch of podcast episodes planned for the future for you all about your lovely liver.  But today we're just going to talk about how your liver is an ally perimenopause symptoms, its role in detoxification, how that works and how that impacts your hormone health and how you can support your liver to detox.  First up, let's talk about your liver itself, because like, I want to start by giving it the recognition it deserves. This thing is a powerhouse. Like it is  a super important organ and it's very important because it's the only organ in our body that can grow back. So if they have to cut out part of your liver,  it can grow back.

And that tells us how important it is, but because it does do hundreds of essential tasks to keep our body running smoothly. I'm just going to give you a quick overview, and then we're going to talk about how it does its main task is detoxification, and so it is your primary detox center. All of your blood in your body goes through the liver  every day, and it filters out the toxins from everything that you consume, food, drinks, medications, air, things that come onto your skin, your liver deals with all of it. It breaks it down, packages it up, sends it off ready for elimination from the body. It also is crucial for hormone regulation. It metabolizes hormones like estrogen. We talked a bit about that the other week with the gut, how the liver packages it up and sends it off to the gut for that elimination there.

So it processes, it breaks down hormones. It makes hormones for you as well. It also is crucial for your metabolism. It converts nutrients from your diet into essential blood components. It stores vitamins and minerals. It creates vitamins as well. It manages the balance of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates in your body. 

Bile production is another thing that our liver does for us. It produces bile, which is stored in our gallbladder  in our body. And it helps digest fats and absorb fat soluble vitamins from our food. So that's vitamins A, D, E, and K. And bile is really important for removing waste products from the liver  for managing our cholesterol levels and much more. 

So the liver helps with our blood sugar regulation. I talked about that last week when I talked about insulin as a master hormone for us. So that's episode 53. If you want to listen to that, the liver helps maintain stable blood sugar levels by storing excess glucose as glycogen  but also creating  glucose from glycogen when it's needed as well. 

I mentioned that it's a storehouse, so  iron, glycogen, vitamins A, D and B12 are stored in the liver and make sure we always have reserves of those when we need to and it acts as a filter. So it filters and removes old or damaged blood cells along with any toxins and waste products from the blood waste products can be just from our normal metabolism as well, not necessarily just from stuff we don't want in the body. 

Old cells, dead cells, ourselves, a program to die. When they're, not working efficiently or as, as good as they should.  Well, that's the, that's how it's meant to happen. And that's what our liver does is filter them out. It also is very important for our immune system. It plays a role there by producing compounds or  molecules for the immune system and removing bacteria from the bloodstream, your lymphatic system, which is like your plumbing system of your body, your waste manageable, your sewer, really it's your waste management system. It dumps everything into the liver there as well.  So it can filter it out and remove it.

And all the blood from your gut, once it's absorbed things from your food, goes to your liver for processing as well. So it really is a powerhouse. It is essential for us for life. And it is  it multitask like a boss. We could all aspire to being like our liver because it just works 24/7 to detox our body, regulate our hormones, support metabolism, produce pile, and so much more.

I mean, it's so impressive, isn't it? And.  We don't really think about it very much, but actually it's,  as important, maybe more important than a heart.  Who am I to say what's more important, but. We can't grow our heart back, but we can grow our liver back.  So there you go.  And I think it gives us a good opportunity to, if we're, experiencing lots of perimenopause symptoms, the liver is a natural place to have a think about supporting it.

So let's talk about how the liver detoxifies. And I'm just going to keep this really simple because it is very complex biochemistry.  We don't need to know all the complexity of it. We just need to know and have an idea of what it's doing.  There's  two main phases for detoxification by the liver. The first phase phase one  this is your liver's first  processing of toxins.

So there's enzymes called cytochrome, cytochrome, P450 and they work to modify any waste or toxins coming through any hormones that need to be eliminated from the body. So those enzymes break down the fat soluble toxins into an intermediate form. And that prepares the toxins for phase two or round two,  but, when it does that, it can actually make some more toxic metabolites while it's, while it's happening. And this is something that happens in our normal metabolism. We when the biochemical processes, when our body is doing what it needs to do.  When our cells are working in the way they're meant to, they can create these things called free radicals  or reactive oxygen species, and they can do damage to our cells and tissues and organs.

And what it is, is we have oxygen. Oxygen is two molecules of oxygen joined together. That's a stable form in a free radical or radical  Reactive oxygen species, the oxygen is split into two single oxygen molecules and they're unstable and they can cause oxidation, oxidative stress. One thing, one oxidative stress that we are familiar with and can see with our eyes is rust.

So  Well, it's not necessarily the same in our body. It's that kind of process.  And if we don't have enough antioxidants available at this time  and our liver makes antioxidants for us, particularly glutathione,  our master antioxidant. If we don't have enough available, then we can have damage done to our liver.

And perhaps I should have backtracked there.  Actually, no, I'm going to tell you about the liver structure and function in a moment in my notes. I'll stick with my plan.  So some things that are processed in phase one include alcohol, caffeine, and certain medications,  but there's many other things as well,  then once they're ready for phase two, they will when they're modified in phase one, phase two kicks in to neutralize these reactive molecules.

So,  this phase involves six different conjugation pathways. And what that means is that a specific molecule is attached to the toxin, making it water soluble so it can be excreted from the body through urine, bile, or in your bowel motions in the intestines.  So phase two processes, those intermediate forms created in phase one  it's really crucial for balancing and preventing the buildup of harmful substances.

So we actually want phase one and phase two to be working at the same rate. And what can happen in some people, depending on our genetic make up is that phase one might work a bit quicker for us or phase two might be quicker than phase one and if phase one is quicker than phase two, we can get a build up of those harmful substances there  And sometimes if that's you you might be really sensitive to caffeine, and things like that and if your phase one is kind of slow you might be not sensitive to caffeine and can drink coffee at 10 o'clock at night and still go to sleep  You So  the six conjugation pathways there, we've got glutathione conjugation that uses the antioxidant that the liver makes for us to neutralize toxins. 

And commonly heavy metals, pesticides, and alcohol by products go through the glutathione pathway.  Sulfation adds a sulfate group to our, to toxins, making them easier to excrete. And that is really  that's used for detoxifying hormones like estrogen, as well as various drugs and food additives there too.

Glucuronidation  is the third pathway and that attaches a glucuronic acid to toxins. It helps increase their solubility. I mean, that's what the aim of phase two game is, and  it processes compounds like bilirubin. From your cell breakdown steroids and some pharmaceuticals there as well.  So pathway number four is amino acid conjugation, and then that's where we're using amino acids, which is the building blocks of protein like glycine and taurine to detoxify substances, like bile acids, phenols and  benzoates, those  preservatives and additives.  Acetylation is  important for the metabolism of some drugs and caffeine.

And methylation adds a methyl group to toxins and that's  important for neurotransmitters histamine. So  and some hormones as well. So remember with histamine, I've done a podcast, actually I've done a couple of podcast episodes on it. Histamine is a big player. If you've got food sensitivities or intolerances or more hay fever during perimenopause, or if you have a wine and then you can't sleep at night. 

Your liver is having trouble with histamine. So go back and find those episodes.  and have a look  at them or have a listen to those about why histamine is part of the problem there for you as well. So just to note that there's actually three phases to liver detox, but the third happens in the gut. 

And I'm not going to talk so much about that today, cause we've really covered that off in episode 49, the gut hormone link. So go have a listen to that as well.  So why do we need to know about the liver and how it detoxes?  Wow.  Neglecting your liver's needs can lead to a buildup of toxins. It can lead to a buildup of our own compounds like histamine and contribute to things like fatigue, weight gain, hormone imbalances, rashes, itchy skin,  insomnia, waking up and not being able to sleep or not getting a deep sleep there as well.

So there's a wide variety of impact that liver congestion can have.  So when we support our liver can actually really improve our wellbeing during perimenopause and reduce our perimenopause symptoms. And knowledge is power. It's always great to understand how your body works at a, it doesn't have to be an in depth level, but it gives you the opportunity to then work on preventative care  and learn, knowing how to manage and look after your body there.

And that means you you can focus on your diet, making targeted dietary and lifestyle changes to help  support your body in that way. So before we talk about the liver overloaders,  those things that are burdening your liver and making it hard to do its job, I want to address the concept of doing a detox because it's a topic that gets a lot of buzz.

People talking about, I'm going to do a detox or a cleanse. And you've probably seen countless products marketed like for as a miracle, detox solution powders, the lemon detox, it's still around. I can't believe that, but anyway and, promising to cleanse your liver and rejuvenate your body.

But the truth is your liver is a state of the art detox lab. It doesn't necessarily need a detox. It's something that it does naturally every single day. It's designed to handle toxins, breaking them down and preparing them for elimination.  However, when our modern lifestyles overload the liver with toxins, it damages the liver cells.

And for a time, your liver can regenerate these cells. I did say the liver can grow back and it's one, it's amazing how it does that, but there will is a time that it's no longer possible for your liver to regenerate those cells. And in that time, that's when a globule of fat takes the place of the cell.

And that's how we get to fatty liver. So that fatty infiltration impacts how well you can detoxify the waste from your body's normal metabolism and the extras from the liver overloaders that you take in.  It also impacts your body's fat management and of course your hormones there as well. So while the concept of a detox is great, In that most of the time when you do a liver detox, you'll actually reduce the burden of what the liver has to process.

But this is where things can get tricky because when you do, if you do embark on a detox, which I wouldn't necessarily recommend you do, you need to be very cautious because many detox products on the market will do more harm than good because they'll disrupt that balance between phase one and phase two detoxification. 

Many of those sorts of products, tea shakes, supplements, whatever, they will speed up  phase one of your liver detox without supporting phase two to keep up. And then you've got,  your bloodstreams flooded with reactive oxygen species and you've got oxidative stress in your cells, tissues and organs.

And you can feel really bad, a lot worse instead of feeling better.  So  it's time to move past the quick fixes and focus on sustainable everyday health habits. And that's why I advocate for that different approach, and rather than doing a quick fix detox for a few days, I want you to focus on reducing the load on your liver and supporting your body's natural elimination pathways, not just for a few days during a detox, but every day, every week, every month.

Because the truth is your liver doesn't actually need a trendy detox product. It needs consistent support through a healthy lifestyle.  And so you think of it as giving your liver a break from working unpaid over time, letting it get on with what it was designed to do and managing our hormones and our blood sugar levels and those sorts of things.

Your liver  is really great at its job and does need help from your bowels and kidneys and skin to eliminate those altered toxins. So regular bowel movements. Making sure you use your bowels every day, drinking plenty of water and sweating all play really important roles in this process.  And drinking plenty of water means that you have plenty of urine to eliminate those toxins.

And if those pathways aren't working efficiently, your urine and your bowels, your skin will take on the burden and you might get issues.  Itches, rashes and itchy skin and pimples there as well.  And if you're not eliminating properly through your bowels and your urine, your hormones can be reabsorbed into your bloodstream and that'll disrupt your hormone balance and make your perimenopause symptoms worse.

So in episode 49, I talked about that with the gut hormone link and how crucial it is for your wellbeing.  Yeah. And I specifically talked about what happens when your hormones sit for too long when when they've been packaged up for elimination and they'll get reabsorbed. And that can be brutal for, contribute to symptoms like short cycles, heavy bleeding, breast tenderness, PMS, rage, all of those things. 

Okay, so  let's explore the factors that can overload your liver, what I call the liver overloaders and how they impact your liver's function and your hormone balance.  So what to watch out for alcohol, no surprise, and I'm going to say that it's a, one of the most well known liver stressors. And your liver prioritizes alcohol to get rid of it straight away because it is that toxic for our body.

But excessive intake can lead to fatty liver inflammation and long term damage. So reduce your alcohol consumption, have plenty of alcohol free days, and that will burden, reduce the burden on your liver. Caffeine, energy drinks, a morning coffee after your breakfast can be fine, but when it becomes excessive more than two in a day and particularly energy drinks, just a toxic combo there with artificial flavors, additives, sweeteners, all of those things as well.

They all add to your body or your liver's workload there as well. Stress, chronic stress and cortisol impacts your blood sugar levels and is very negative for your liver there as well. It can interrupt your sleep, which impacts your liver health there too.  And poor nutrition or under nutrition, diets, high in processed foods, sugars, especially fructose and sucrose  unhealthy fats like canola oil or rice bran oil, they all contribute to liver inflammation, and fatty liver disease  and an extra toxin for your liver to deal with.  Environmental toxins. This is probably maybe something when I say toxin, we think about straight away, like those pollutants, pesticides, chemicals  in your household products, in your personal care, in your perfumes, some of those compounds are endocrine disruptors.

They mimic estrogen and can disrupt your hormone balance in and of themselves, but they're also a very heavy burden for your liver. And I have done a whole podcast episode on endocrine disruptors there as well. So please do go and listen so that you can learn more about how to switch those  chemicals out of your life and ease the burden on your liver there. 

Smoking and vaping, I mean, I probably don't need to tell you that. Please don't do either of those and even infection and illness. So things like hepatitis, Epstein Barr, COVID, all of those can directly damage your liver cells. They have more to process because as your body and your immune system is fighting them,  it will need more of the glutathione antioxidants.

There's more immune, other immune compounds to produce as well. Some prescription and over the counter medications. It's like,  paracetamol, ibuprofen, all of those things, you can buy them at the sup... Well, you can't buy them at supermarket anymore here in Australia, but they are, they do have an effect on your liver.

And so you do need to think about them and use them,  prudently.  Now our soil has less minerals in it these days. So when I should have mentioned this, when I was talking about your diet, that under nutrition can be, even if we're eating a whole foods diet, we may not be getting enough of the nutrients that we need because of the soil quality. 

 And the way food is growing these days. So  and, and eating processed foods is certainly a great way to have less nutrients than what you need.  But also it, there's a lot of additives and chemicals and preservatives in that as well that the liver has to deal with.  And lucky number 10 is your gut and microbiome health.

This can create toxic byproducts. If you've got an imbalance, a dysbiosis in your microbiome,  then that can contribute to more toxins in your, the blood going to your liver. But also those, the death of, of microbes  particularly the negative microbes can create inflammatory compounds and  for our liver to have to deal with 

Now, understanding these liver loaders and taking steps to reduce the impact, you can support your liver's natural detoxification processes. No need for a detox. You're doing it every day. When you take those liver overloaders out of your life, or at least reduce them. So it's not about a quick fix, but about creating sustainable habits that support your overall wellbeing. That's what I'm all about.

That's what I teach all of my clients. So  you're going to take the liver overloaders out. You're going to add in some nutrient dense foods, liver friendly foods, beetroot, leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower.  Kale, all of those wonderful things, cabbage and your healthy fats there as well.

Don't be shy with the red meat, poultry, fish, seafood, eggs, and dairy. They're all got essential nutrients to help support your liver in its function. Fruit, nuts and seeds, legumes,  and things like bone broth, dark chocolate. Yeah, because if it has a high cocoa content, then yes, please.  Seaweed, even tea, green tea and black tea can be helpful and provide lots of nutrients and antioxidant compounds to help support your liver. 

I mentioned staying well hydrated to help with your detoxification processes. So that's something that you can easily add into your day.  35 mils of water or an ounce of water,  per two pounds or one kilo of body weight per day. That's what you're aiming for. And remember with all of this, just start small, just, swap out your usual snack to have some almonds or something.

Instead, if you're going to have a snack, have a little square of dark chocolate with it, add some spinach to your smoothie. If you're a smoothie drinker, take some alcohol out, put some parameters around your alcohol use so that you,  not having so much.  Now sleep is really important. I know I say this all the time, but sufficient rest is needed for your liver to regenerate and function.

Your liver's busiest with its self cleaning cycles between 1 and 3 AM.  So if you're waking up in those times, it's a good sign that your liver might need some love. So eat your dinner early. Before eight and  and it's helpful for your liver to be able to focus on its cleansing functions. So that brings us to the end of today's episode covered heaps of ground and we've gone through that really quickly. 

But I've hoped that you understand the essentials now and what your liver does, what overloads it, how to support it for its best health and why you should do that because the benefits are massive. And don't wait to your symptoms get worse. Don't wait to get diagnosed with fatty liver start today. Do it today.

Your future self will thank you.  So key action items are think about your daily coffee or that glass of wine after work, because those seemingly harmless things actually really add up and overload your liver and disrupt your hormone balance. Put parameters around your consumption of those big overloaders.

Like I'll only have coffee after my breakfast. It was at breakfast, or I'll only have two standard drinks when, when I'm out with my friends and I won't drink at home while I'm cooking dinner.  Reduce your chemical loads. So think about your perfumes, preservatives, the spray, fresheners, and things in the house.

And of course, stress management, building stress resilience, and the ultimate stress Resilience booster sleep. Your liver needs you to sleep so it can restore and repair itself and detoxify. Incorporate those liver friendly foods that I mentioned, the cruciferous vegetables, leafy greens, healthy fats. And if this is hard for you to work out and you want some support and guidance in how to eat to beat your perimenopause symptoms, lose the stubborn hormonal weight and love on your liver, gut, and your body overall, then you need to go check out my four week program, PerimenoGO, you can find the link to learn more about it in the show notes at chaostocalmpodcast.com because that's what PerimenoGO is all about teaching you how to eat for this phase of life and beyond without having to be stuck on a meal plan forever.  Now, if you're looking for more resources or you want to submit a question, please visit the show notes and while you're there, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss another episode.

Thank you so much for joining me and sharing your time with me today. I'm really looking forward to talking with you next time about how I meal plan and prep to make sure my body has everything it needs. My kids are happy. I love you. And we're eating well, and I'm going to do that in the next episode to help keep you shifting your perimenopause experience from chaos to calm until then goodbye and have a great week.