Chaos to Calm

7 signs your liver is overloaded and making perimenopause worse

Sarah McLachlan Episode 66

Is your liver secretly sabotaging your perimenopause?
When your liver is overloaded, it can mimic or worsen common perimenopause symptoms, leaving you stuck. Are you sure it’s just your hormones causing trouble?

Key takeaways:
• Spot the hidden signs of liver overload, like stubborn weight gain and unexpected fatigue.
• Understand why liver health matters more during perimenopause, and how it influences hormone balance.
• Gain practical steps to support liver function and take control of your symptoms.

Sneak peek:
"When you're going through perimenopause, it's easy to chalk up symptoms like fatigue, bloating, and weight gain to hormone changes or just being busy. But what if there's another key player - your liver?"

Discover how to identify liver-related issues and make meaningful changes to reduce symptoms. Don’t accept ‘just perimenopause’ when there’s more you can do.

Listen to the full episode now to learn how to support your liver and take back control of your perimenopause journey.

Links & resources mentioned in the episode:
Episode 49 on Insulin 
Episode 54 on Liver over loaders
Episode 57 Gallbladder health

Send us a question for the FAQs segment or your feedback, we’d love to hear from you.

Find out more about Sarah, her services and the Freebies mentioned in this episode at https://www.ThePerimenopauseNaturopath.com.au

  • OPEN NOW: Discover how to use food as your most powerful medicine, smoothing hormonal fluctuations and easing perimenopause symptoms naturally. (Yes, you have more options than hormone therapy!) Say goodbye to feeling out of control and hello to feeling more like your old self every day, with PerimenoGO (because who wants to pause anyway?!)
  • The Perimenopause Decoder is the ultimate guide to understanding if perimenopause hormone fluctuations are behind your changing mood, metabolism and energy after 40, what phase of perimenopause you're in and how much longer you may be on this roller coaster for.
  • Been told your blood test results are "normal" or "fine" while you feel far from your best? Discover the power of optimal blood test analysis with The Blood Test Decoder: Optimal Ranges for Women Over 40.
  • For more, follow on Instagram at @theperimenopausenaturopath.

Hello, and welcome to the chaos to calm podcast, episode number 66. I'm Sarah, the perimenopause naturopath, you're guide through this journey of perimenopause. So if you're over 40 and feeling like your changing hormones are hijacking your mood, energy, and weight. And you want to change that in a holistic way, then this is the place for you because each episode I share with you, my views on what the heck is happening in your body. Why are you feeling the way that 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. Thank you for sharing your time with me today. Let's get right into discussing the topic so we can start shifting your perimenopause experience from chaos to calm.

So when you're going through perimenopause, it's easy to chalk up symptoms like fatigue, bloating, weight gain, flushes, sweat, headaches, all those sorts of things to the hormone changes to us, just perimenopause, or the stress of daily life.

But what if there's another key player in the mix?

And that key player could be your liver. So it's often overlooked. We don't really think much about it until there's a problem with it, but there's a whole bunch of time before that, that we can be supporting and loving on outlive it because it does play a really vital role in our hormone balance and metabolism. And if it's overloaded or not working at its best. The symptoms that you get can be quite similar to lots of perimenopause symptoms or make those perimenopause symptoms a lot worse and yet can easily just be dismissed. 

Just paramedicals are just normal for a busy mum. I know this firsthand. Because despite being basically a non-drinker, so for all my thirties, I was pregnant or breastfeeding. And in that time in, was around, I would have been when I was about 40. I was diagnosed with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. So I'd had lots of symptoms before that like random itchy skin, particularly on my arms. Waking in the middle of the night around 2:00 AM all the time migraines, lots of PMS, lots of abdominal weight gain, but particularly on the upper abdomen. And they were really vague and, easily put down to hormones. 

I was busy. A lot of stress in my life. I was still studying, raising four kids breastfeeding. Like there was a lot of demand on my body, so it was really easy to dismiss those as part of that. And perimenopause could have been part of the mix then as well. But, I was too young, so it wasn't considered and I was breastfeeding. 

So, through everyone just doesn't think about perimenopause. If you're breastfeeding. So it wasn't until like a regular blood test that, or I'd ask for a blood test because I was feeling so rubbish. I'd gained weight and, I couldn't understand why. And then my liver enzymes were quite out of range and the real issue came up. I've behind lots of those things for me. 

So I think it's really important to understand what your liver does. How it gets overloaded or sluggish. Which, flagging here is more of a naturopathic perspective than a Western medicine perspective, because when I'm saying you live a sluggish and we're looking at signs that it's overloaded or sluggish. From a naturopathic perspective, we were thinking about preventative care. 

So your liver enzymes may not be out of range, but you're having a bunch of symptoms. They may not necessarily be specific. They can be quiet. They can be attributable to lots of different things, but we might look at your liver and it had, and do some work around helping it perform at its best. So I just want to flag that at the stop because there's a, you know, what I'm going to talk about today is not necessarily diagnostic. Your doctor might poopoo it if you take it to them, because they're like, you have liver enzymes are fine, so there's nothing to worry about. But it's important to understand these signs. 

It's important to understand how your liver works, how it gets overloaded, because it is really important for your hormonal health, right through your lifespan from puberty to menopause. But particularly during perimenopause, when things can feel really out of control and we're not necessarily looking to balance our hormones in perimenopause, but we're just looking to reduce those wild fluctuations. And looking after your liver can help do that. Because let's have a quick review of why your liver matters so much in perimenopause, because it does do lots of things for us. 

It's our detox powerhouse. It filters toxins from, that come into us for our food drinks, medications. The environment, it filters them and packages up ready to be removed from our body. But it also helps with our hormone production and regulation, our fat metabolism and storage, our blood sugar balance energy balance, our insulin, all areas that it can become really difficult to manage in perimenopause. We need to do everything we can to try and help support and reduce those big fluctuations that can happen particularly in early perimenopause, because that's how you're going to reduce your symptoms and just feel better overall. And better, right through your lifespan. When estrogen is fluctuating, really, it can go really high and early perimenopause. 

You can go back to like episode three is all about estrogen. And I talk there about how it actually fluctuates and it can go really high, like higher than it usually does for you, but also really low in the early perimenopause time. But when it is, your liver. Is working hard to metabolize your hormones, process your fats, keep you insulin blood sugar level balance. If it's sluggish or overloaded. You can get more of those mood swings, weight gain. And things like that, like it could be your liver waving a red flag, waving it's a little flag, please help. So yeah, episode 54, I talk into the con talk into your liver, what it does and what overloads it like your. When I'm talking about liver overload, is there like every day? Habits foods, drinks, that could be sabotaging your liver and your liver health and contributing to, or worsening your perimenopause symptoms like fatigue, mood swings, flushes sweats, your sleep. 

So if you haven't listened to it, I recommend you check it out to understand how simple lifestyle factors can affect your liver health.

For now let's have a look at some of those common signs that I see in practice that your liver is under strain. So first out loss of appetite in the morning. And nausea I've put here too as well. So one of the things I see in a lot of the women who come to me that I work with is, they don't eat breakfast because they don't feel hungry in the morning. Now when your liver is stressed or overloaded or sluggish in its function, you often will find yourself waking up without an appetite. 

And you may even feel a bit nauseous after your meals, particularly if you do still eat breakfast. You might feel a bit nauseous after that.

So this I find happens because it's still dealing with like the day before. Your liver. That is so it's still dealing with what's come into your buddy the day before and it's, it's slows everything down. It's like a preservative factor, I suppose it's like, it wants you, to just slow down. It's not quite ready to deal with some more stuff. So, it makes you feel not hungry. I knew digestion can slow down and then you feel a bit nauseous after you ate. So loss of appetite in the morning or no, no appetite in the morning. 

I love it. When I went with clients and they tell me they wake up and they're hungry in the morning, it gets so excited because I feel like yay. We've made some progress. So hopefully that happens for you. Once you get things in order. So sleep disturbances. Especially after alcohol. So if you wake up between one and three, that's another classic sign of liver sluggishness or your liver is overloaded. We're looking, thinking about the Chinese, organ Chinese medicine, organ clock here. And between one and 3:00 AM. 

Is this. They say is when your liver is working its hardest and repairing, restoring and working hard to detox your body.

So you might wake up then particularly hot or sweaty around that time, if you consistently waking up at that time. It's a great. It's, it's not diagnostic, like I said, but it's, we're thinking about, and looking at now another classics, if you have alcohol, even in small amounts, like if you have one glass of wine and that your sleep is then super disrupted, particularly waking you up around that time. Then your liver needs some love.

Now I meant, weight gain. And. So some of these are nonspecific. Don't forget. There may be many other reasons. Behind this as well. And that's why it can be hard to work this out on your own. And it might be nice to work with someone who can, have a look from the outside in, or look at your bloods and, and let what they think you need to look at. PerimenoGO Crew, which is the membership that supports my four week program PerimenoGO. They have access to a state of health. Quiz that helps produce like a wheel or a web that shows them the areas or the systems of their body that need more help like liver hormones. I mean, system stress. Whenever it is the ones that are quite significant in paramedicals or what's focused on in that graph. So that is really useful in helping to focus attention on what needs work. One of the things with weight gain in perimenopause women most often will gain weight around the abdomen. That sort of more square shape. But I'm talking about upper abdominal weight gain. 

So just around your brown line. And you might even get some tenderness in the area then now it could relate to your gallbladder. There could be inflammation there. All your liver either way it's worth looking at. And remember, I did that episode on your gallbladder and why you need to hang on to it. I'll put the link to it in the show notes, but also go back and have a listen to that if you think that might be there. 

But also a few power pate or your doctor palpating, this tenderness or pain in there. That's a good sign that your liver needs some help. Now, the reason that you put some weight on around in that area, It may be early fatty liver. Like there's extra fat deposited around your liver. And the pain or tenderness might be from the inflammation and, in the area. Now unexplained, itchy skin. 

This is something that I said bothered me. I remember I had it often in pregnancy, but also had it around the time when I fell before fatty liver was diagnosed for me. So I had this insight just get insanely itchy arms. You could have it anywhere, but there was no rash. There was no irritation, no changing my washing powder or anything like that, that could contribute to why I was having this itchiness. And it also sort of didn't go away for itching. 

It didn't never felt any better for that. So that can be a sign that your liver is overloaded. It can be from a buildup of bile salts. But also what happens when your liver and your other elimination pathways? Are not working effectively, so you're not eliminating through urine or your bowels. Your body uses your skin as a last resort. So it could be that it's trying to release toxins there. 

And so sweating is really good to help with this regular, dry brushing too. But also making sure that you use your bowels every day and you're drinking plenty of water so that you can eliminate through your urine. But yeah, it could be a buildup of bile salts and imbalance in your liver function there. Elevated cholesterol and your blood lipids. 

Now this happens in perimenopause because of our hormone fluctuations. Yes, it's true. So again, it could be just perimenopause, but it also could be your liver because when your liver function gets deranged, as they lovely word that they use for it. You can get more fat deposits around the liver because it isn't producing cholesterol and triglycerides as it should. 

And you get more in your blood and it gets back to your liver. Is there. I don't know what to do. Padded on around itself there as well. And you can get infiltration. Of the liver cells with fat there as well. So hormone changes like lower estrogen and high insulin complicate your fat metabolism anyway in perimenopause, but also when your liver is out of balance, it can exacerbate that more. So, if you've noticed in your blood tests and increase in your blood cholesterol, particularly triglycerides, I'm going to pay attention to that.

Now estrogen excess symptoms. 

So your liver, I talk about in episode 54, what your liver does? It helps process and eliminate excess estrogen. If it's struggling. You can get a slowdown in that. And you might notice more of the symptoms when you have more estrogen in your bloodstream, like weight gain. Well, it could be lots of reasons around that as well. 

So, don't always just write it off as perimenopause or maybe it's your liver. It's we're thinking about it holistically.

Bloating fluid retention, fatigue. I often see fatigue. And I actually, I wish that I had put it on my notes here to talk about separately. But let's talk about it now. Fatigue is one of those symptoms. I think again, it's like a primal response from our body. It's like, wow, there's just too much going on. 

I can't deal. Go crawl into your cave and sleep and just lie quietly. Don't get. Don't bring anything else into the equation until I've caught up with what's going on. That's what I imagine, the conversation that liver and the rest of our body. Anyway, so fatigue can be quite protective, a protective mechanism for your body to help slow down or stop. More coming in, so it can just deal with what it's got, but fatigue can be an estrogen excess symptom. And so it can headaches and migraines, but they also can be signs when your liver is not functioning well. 

And you've got a backup of toxins and, in your bloodstream, short cycles when you've got a higher estrogen or estrogen excess. Heavy cramps, heavy bleeding, breast tenderness, and even decreased libido, which is interesting. Isn't it? Reduced. I always think of estrogen as like the, the yin to our progesterone yang. 

And it's like, gives us that sort of assertiveness and get up and go. So it's interesting. Always to me that we get a decreased libido and we have estrogen excess. I would think it would be the other way round, but it isn't. So yeah, they are all common perimenopause symptoms because estrogen does normally flux high, especially in early perimenopause. 

But if your liver isn't working well or efficiently, you may get, you may notice that those are more severe.

The last one I'm going to talk about is brain fog and memory now, classic perimenopause sign or menopause symptom as well. But it could be, like I said, it kind of relates to that fatigue. Doesn't it? Like you. Everything gets a bit thrown off. But liver overload or sluggish liver. Impacts your glucose balance in your hormones like insulin. And that can impact your mental clarity or how your brain is working. Because your brain cells don't have the metabolic flexibility that the rest of your body does. 

So they really love glucose as their first call for energy. And if they're not. If we've got, we might have a lot of glucose in our bloodstream, but we've got insulin resistance in ourselves. It means that the glucose can't get into the cells for them to create the energy they need. To do the thinking and that's when you can get brain fog. So we also have inflammation. 

We have inflammation in our gastrointestinal system, including our liver. We can get inflammation in our brain, which can further cloud your thinking. Make it harder to, concentrate and your memory.

So, yeah, fatigue, memory fog, all those things can be attributable to perimenopause, but it's also, we're thinking about your liver and your liver health. As well, because it is something that you can do to help ease those symptoms. There's lots of things that you can do. I just want to flag though that, The symptoms can often be managed through your lifestyle and your food and your drink. But there. There are signs of more serious liver disease. 

Like if you get yellowing of the skin or your eyes jaundice, dark urine, really pale bowel motions or extreme fatigue. You really need to see your doctor as soon as you start noticing changes for that because they're signs of serious liver disease. And it can be managed if early. And so don't hesitate to seek medical advice if you find these symptoms or you're worried about them, or you think they might be there. I think it's always worth talking and getting some blood tests done and rather than, waiting to see if it gets worse.

Because when you get things early, you've always got the chance for preventative care or to try and reverse things before it gets really bad. Okay. So what let's, what can we do to support our liver? So remember episode 54, I've taught in a lot more depth about this, but I just want to remind you to cut back on alcohol. 

Even if you decide that you don't drink during the week, maybe only have drink us on the weekend. Try and cut those weekend drinks down to one or two only. And give you a liver, lots of downtime there by not drinking during the week. Same with caffeine. Swap your second.

Or heaven forbid you're having third or fourth or whatever, swap those coffees for green tea or white tea and decaffeinated would be even better versions of those because they provide lots of antioxidants. 

They sued your nervous system with because they have theonine in them rather than stimulate your nervous system like coffee, and they really support your liver health. I want to say that coffee is better. So my next point is to tell you to increase your bitter and sulfurous food. 

So yes, caffeine is bitter, but it's also quite stimulating for your nervous system. So you might instead of drinking coffee, you might, and you, but you like a bitter drink. You could try like a dandelion root coffee and there's lots of great ones on the market these days that don't have those tastes. Oh, those, like they were in the, in the eighties and nineties. 

So, that's a lovely way to get dandelion root into your body. It's very good for your liver health. It's a great herb. So you can drink it like a coffee, or you can get it as a tea, but it's the route that you want for your liver. And other bitter greens like rocket. I've got a lettuce growing in my garden at the moment, and it's a little bit bitter. It's lovely. 

So things that red Oak at the grocers is a nice, mild bitter radish even is sulfurous. Which is great. Cause you want the sulfur foods to support your liver detox pathways. It's also a little bit bitter there as well. So don't forget other sulfur, rich veggies, like, your basics like garlic and onion, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, brussels, sprouts, kohlrabis coming into season. That's one of my favorite sulfur rich veg, and anything bitter. So even like you're using your vinegars lemon, those sorts of things as well. And now just want to say, what's your sugar intake. If you think that you've got liver issues, keep your fruit to two servings a day, keep it with your meals. 

And not in between meals and avoid anything with added sugar and particularly highly processed foods, because that's going to reduce your liver's workload. Now, focusing on insulin sensitivity. So episode 49, I talk about insulin, insulin resistance, and how to improve your sensitivity. But you want to eat a diet rich in fiber, phytoestrogens, healthy fats and protein. To help stabilize your blood sugar, reduce insulin resistance. Phytoestrogens wonderful for helping with your hormone balance as well. And yet, like I said, let's support your detox pathways. 

So get plenty of fiber from your fruit and veg to support your bowel movements, where you eliminate your liver does its work, sends it off to the bow and then you eliminate it there. You want to drink lots of water, same deal. Your liver packages up toxin sends them over to the kidneys and out they go through your urine. And sweating regularly can help your body detoxify. 

Now you don't have to have a sauna in your house. Although sauna is a lovely way to challenge and stretch your immune system and your cardiovascular system. And help with your lymphatic system and detoxification. But maybe I'm just doing some regular exercise. I'm going for a walk. You don't have to run, lifting heavy weights, any of those things to help you get a sweat up. Regularly is great to help your body detoxify. And, or, doing, like I said, some dry brushing to help with detoxification and via lymphatic system and your skin.

So remembering always our liver really is a silent hero, how important your liver is because it's the only organ in our body that can regenerate and regrow. If they remove part of your liver, it can regroup. I think that speaks volumes about how important it is for our body there. Your liver is always working to process toxins, balance hormones, and regulate your fat metabolism, your energy, your blood glucose. Especially during perimenopause. But when it's overloaded, your symptoms might get worse. So perimenopause symptoms can get worse. You can feel worse. And recognizing that these signs might be related to your liver. Not just writing them off as oh, well, I'm busy. 

I'm stressed. I'm in perimenopause. Those are contributing factors, but not necessarily the cause or the underlying driver. So it's always worth having a look to find what it might be. Maybe it might be your liver. There's pretty simple steps or things you can do to support your liver. And they will have a bigger impact on your health, your mood, your energy levels. 

So I think they're worth doing, and, once you incorporate them into your daily routine, Then, then it kind of don't feel like you haven't, you're not doing anything, it's not like you're having to work hard to do these things. So that my friend is all for today. 

Thank you for listening and sharing your time with me. Please do check out the show notes for the links to those other episodes that I've mentioned and any resources I've talked about today. www.chaostocompodcast.com. While you're there don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode, leave a review so more women are shown my podcast and have the opportunity to find out more about the options in perimenopause or maybe you might share with a friend who could benefit more from hearing about perimenopause or their liver or any of the things that I talk about there. I'm looking forward to talking with you about the hormones related to your appetite and appetite regulation in the next episode. But until then keep working on moving your perimenopause experience from chaos to calm.

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