Don’t let your liver get greasy! Nutritionist's 4 Tips for Smart Eating

Are you still abusing your liver? The liver is the largest detoxification organ in the human body, but many people have an irregular lifestyle and can only choose high-fat, high-sugar, and high-salt food for every meal. The liver is overworked for a long time, becomes sick, and has poor work efficiency, which causes cholesterol and triglycerides to accumulate, leading to fatty liver. However, fatty liver can be improved through a normal diet. Let’s hear what nutritionists say about how to eat a healthy liver.

Eating a balanced diet and consuming more antioxidant fruits and vegetables can help maintain liver health and prevent the formation of fatty liver.

Fatty liver can be roughly divided into two categories: "alcoholic fatty liver" and "non-alcoholic fatty liver". The severity of alcoholic fatty liver is proportional to the degree of alcoholism. Usually, as long as you stop drinking and maintain a balanced diet, the liver will gradually return to normal, reducing the risk of deterioration into cirrhosis.

As for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, Chiu Shih-han, a nutritionist at the Millennium Love Health Foundation, said that the best way to improve it is to eat a balanced diet low in fat, eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, exercise more, and lose weight moderately. None of these can be missing. As for diet, as long as you grasp 4 principles, including replacing part of animal protein with plant protein, moderately supplementing foods that can lower cholesterol, eating more antioxidant fruits and vegetables, and eating a diet that promotes liver function, you can stay away from fatty liver faster.

Tip 1: Eat protein wisely

Protein sources can be divided into animal and plant sources. Many people cannot live without meat, which results in excessive intake of animal protein (including meat, eggs and dairy products). As a result, they also consume fat, which cannot be digested by the liver and becomes stored. Nutritionists recommend that people consume 3 to 8 servings of beans, fish, meat, and eggs to supplement protein according to the daily dietary guidelines, and the ratio of animal protein to plant protein should be 1:1. Soybeans are plant-based ingredients that are rich in soy protein and antioxidants, do not contain cholesterol and animal fats, and help prevent the formation of fatty liver.

Plant-based soybean ingredients do not contain cholesterol and animal fats, and can replace part of animal protein, helping to prevent fatty liver.

Method 2: Cholesterol-lowering diet

The American Heart Association recommends that the daily cholesterol intake for adults should be capped at 300 mg. Excessive intake will increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and will also increase the metabolic burden on the liver. Foods such as fish oil, oats, red yeast rice and natto, as well as catechins in green tea and oolong tea, can help lower cholesterol.

Tip 3: Antioxidant fruits and vegetables

Fresh and diverse fruits and vegetables are rich in nutrients such as vitamin C, vitamin E and carotenoids. Each of them contains a variety of phytochemicals with strong antioxidant capacity, which help maintain the normal functioning of the liver and prevent the formation of fatty liver.

Technique 4: Improve liver function

What people often say "promoting liver metabolism" can actually be divided into two meanings: "energy metabolism" and "detoxification". Nutritionist Qiu Shihan said that B complex can promote liver metabolism, but it may not necessarily help detoxification. If you want to improve the liver's detoxification efficiency, artichoke and glutathione are good choices, both of which have high antioxidant capacity.

Nutritionist Qiu Shihan specifically pointed out that artichokes can reduce the damage of toxic substances to the liver. The phytochemical "cynarin" in it can also lower total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein, thereby preventing and improving fatty liver.

Artichoke has strong antioxidant capacity, which can reduce the damage of toxic substances to the liver. It is used as a medicine and food for treating liver diseases in traditional European medicine.

Cynarin is a derivative of cinnamic acid that can enhance liver activity, increase bile secretion, and regulate cholesterol in the body. In 2000, the international pharmaceutical journal Arzneimittel-Forschung published a double-blind randomized trial on 143 patients with total cholesterol exceeding 280 mg/dL. The trial found that after 6 weeks of daily use of cynarin, the total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein levels of the experimental group were significantly reduced.

Artichoke, also known as "cinchona", looks like a large green flower bud. The flower bud can be eaten as a vegetable. In the past, it was often used in traditional medicine in Brazil and European countries to treat liver and gallbladder disorders.