Foods That Support Liver Health: What the Research Says

Everything you eat passes through your liver. Some foods hand it raw materials for its daily work, and others add to its to-do list. Dr. Jarod Ward's Love Your Liver cleanse leans hard on the first group. Here's what the research says about the foods your liver handles well, and why.

Broccoli and its relatives switch on the enzymes that tag toxins for removal

Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale and arugula belong to the cruciferous family. Broccoli sprouts are a rich source of glucoraphanin, which the body turns into sulforaphane. Sulforaphane is an inducer of glutathione S-transferases, enzymes that attach a tag to unwanted chemicals so the body can send them out.

A 12-week randomized trial tested this in 291 people living in a part of China with heavy air pollution. Those who drank a daily broccoli sprout beverage excreted 61 percent more of the tagged form of benzene, an air pollutant, than those on placebo. The drink was concentrated, more than you'd get from a serving of broccoli, and the study measured what left in urine rather than liver health itself. It shows the tagging step responding to food. That tagging step is phase 2 of liver detox, explained in Phase 1 and Phase 2 Liver Detox.

People who eat the most vegetable fiber have less than half the odds of fatty liver

In national survey data on 6,613 US adults, researchers compared fiber intake with a fatty liver index. People in the top quarter for vegetable fiber had less than half the odds of fatty liver of those in the bottom quarter (odds ratio 0.42). Fruit fiber showed nearly the same link (0.41).

Practically, that means a plate where vegetables take up real space at most meals, not a garnish.

Eggs nearly double your choline, a nutrient your liver depends on

Choline is a nutrient most people have never thought about, and the liver needs it. In a controlled study, adults were fed a diet very low in choline. Within weeks, 77 percent of men and 80 percent of postmenopausal women developed fatty liver or muscle damage, compared with 44 percent of premenopausal women. Their organ function returned to normal when choline went back into the diet.

Most Americans fall short. A US survey analysis found that only about 8 percent of adults meet the recommended intake, and adults who ate eggs took in almost twice as much choline as those who didn't: 525 milligrams a day compared with 294. Meat, poultry and seafood raised choline intake too, to a lesser degree.

Dr. Jarod is a fan of the most traditional choice of all, eating liver itself:

"The liver is a very nutrient dense tissue, right, in us and also in livestock, and that's why it's really good for us to eat liver."

Protein supplies the building blocks for glutathione

Glutathione is one of the main tags your liver attaches during detox. Your body builds it from amino acids, including cysteine and glycine, which come from protein in your diet. In a small study of older adults with low glutathione, two weeks of extra cysteine and glycine raised glutathione levels by 94.6 percent. That study was small and uncontrolled, but it shows the supply line: your body can only build glutathione from the parts it has. Protein at each meal keeps the parts coming.

A Mediterranean pattern cut liver fat by 39 percent without weight loss

In a randomized crossover trial, 12 people with fatty liver ate a Mediterranean diet for six weeks and a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet for six weeks. Liver fat fell 39 percent on the Mediterranean diet and 7 percent on the low-fat diet, with no difference in weight loss between the two. The authors wrote: "Even without weight loss, MD reduces liver steatosis and improves insulin sensitivity."

The pattern is simple to picture: vegetables, olive oil, fish, nuts and plenty of plants, with little added sugar.

Water carries the finished work out, and sugary drinks add to it

Once your liver has tagged a chemical, the last step is getting it out of the body, through bile and the gut or through the kidneys and urine. Water keeps that route moving. Sugary drinks do the opposite: in the Framingham Heart Study, one or more sugar-sweetened drinks a day was linked to 61 percent higher odds of fatty liver disease.

None of this has to be perfect to help. Dr. Jarod uses Popeye to describe what good food does even before someone is ready for a full cleanse: "Okay, the bad guys are still here, but he's got spinach. He can make it through." How the cleanse builds on that is in What to Expect on a Liver Cleanse, and ordering this way at a restaurant is in How to Eat Out on a Liver Cleanse.

The full plan comes with the cleanse

Love Your Liver is Dr. Jarod's 21-day guided liver cleanse, and it's self-paced. The full meal plan, supplement schedule, shopping list and daily texts come with the cleanse. Your supplements ship to your door, and Day 1 starts the moment you tap start.

Prefer to start with a conversation? Dr. Jarod runs functional medicine and lab testing at Crown Chiropractic in Fort Myers. Call (239) 441-2275 to book a consultation.

Sources

• Dr. Jarod Ward, Crown Chiropractic. Liver episode on YouTube.
• Egner PA, Chen JG, Zarth AT, et al. Rapid and sustainable detoxication of airborne pollutants by broccoli sprout beverage: results of a randomized clinical trial in China. Cancer Prevention Research 2014;7(8):813-823.
• Zhao H, Yang A, Mao L, et al. Association between dietary fiber intake and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in adults. Frontiers in Nutrition 2020;7:593735.
• Fischer LM, daCosta KA, Kwock L, et al. Sex and menopausal status influence human dietary requirements for the nutrient choline. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2007;85(5):1275-1285.
• Wallace TC, Fulgoni VL. Usual choline intakes are associated with egg and protein food consumption in the United States. Nutrients 2017;9(8):839.
• Sekhar RV, Patel SG, Guthikonda AP, et al. Deficient synthesis of glutathione underlies oxidative stress in aging and can be corrected by dietary cysteine and glycine supplementation. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2011;94(3):847-853.
• Ryan MC, Itsiopoulos C, Thodis T, et al. The Mediterranean diet improves hepatic steatosis and insulin sensitivity in individuals with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Journal of Hepatology 2013;59(1):138-143.
• Almazroo OA, Miah MK, Venkataramanan R. Drug metabolism in the liver. Clinics in Liver Disease 2017;21(1):1-20.
• Ma J, Fox CS, Jacques PF, et al. Sugar-sweetened beverage, diet soda, and fatty liver disease in the Framingham Heart Study cohorts. Journal of Hepatology 2015;63(2):462-469.