"Health from Food" Series | Avoid bad habits to protect your liver

The liver is a very important organ in the human body. Keeping the liver healthy and allowing it to perform its proper functions is essential to good health.

The liver has the functions of synthesis, metabolism, detoxification, and defense, which is equivalent to the "chemical factory" of the human body. Synthesis means that the liver is responsible for synthesizing albumin, coagulation factors and other essential substances for the human body; metabolism means that the liver is responsible for metabolizing sugar, fat, protein and other substances to generate energy; detoxification means that the liver converts harmful substances produced during the body's metabolism into non-toxic or highly soluble substances and excretes them out of the body; defense means that the large number of phagocytes contained in the liver can resist the invasion of bacteria and other external substances into the human body. When there is a problem with the liver, liver function will be affected to varying degrees. Since the liver is the largest digestive gland in the human body, the most common manifestation is decreased appetite, accompanied by symptoms such as fatigue and colds.

What bad habits can affect liver health?

Excessive drinking. The ethanol contained in alcoholic beverages has a direct damaging effect on liver cells. Long-term heavy drinking will gradually develop into fatty liver and further lead to cirrhosis. For patients with chronic liver disease, quitting drinking is the first priority.

Staying up late. Staying up late is a common bad habit. Both Chinese and Western medicine do not recommend staying up late. At night, the liver should rest to repair cells, but staying up late prevents this state from being completed. Over time, it will inevitably damage liver function, which is what Chinese medicine calls staying up late damaging liver yin. Many occupations require night shifts. In this case, some measures can be taken to minimize the damage to the liver caused by staying up late, such as keeping warm and reducing the body's calorie consumption, while eating foods that nourish the liver and are both medicinal and edible, such as wolfberry and chrysanthemum water, white fungus and lotus seed porridge, etc. In addition, avoid drinking alcohol, spicy, stimulating and greasy foods, and high-intensity exercise a few days before and after staying up late to minimize the impact of staying up late on the liver.

Angry. Anger also has an impact on the liver, which is called "anger hurts the liver" in Chinese medicine. Because when angry, the human body is in a highly tense and excited state, the small arteries in the liver will be tense and contracted, affecting the normal blood flow to the liver, resulting in a decrease in blood and oxygen supply to the liver, thus affecting the normal function of the liver.

Fatigue. Fatigue can also damage the liver. Chinese medicine says that "exhaustion depletes the Qi". When the body is too tired, a large amount of lactic acid and other substances produced by the human body need to be metabolized by the liver. Once these substances exceed the liver's load, the normal function of the liver will be affected.

Therefore, avoid behaviors that harm the liver and let the liver work in a relaxed and happy state.

Common liver diseases include viral liver disease, alcoholic liver disease, metabolic liver disease, drug-induced liver disease, autoimmune liver disease, etc. Hepatitis B is the most common viral liver disease, and there are also hepatitis C, hepatitis A, hepatitis E, etc. With the improvement of living conditions, the incidence of alcoholic liver disease and metabolic liver disease is getting higher and higher. Alcoholic liver disease is caused by excessive drinking. Metabolic liver diseases such as fatty liver are caused by people not controlling their diet or eating irrationally. Drug-induced liver disease is mainly caused by the use of liver-damaging drugs. Autoimmune liver disease is caused by the immune system's inability to recognize its own tissues and organs, and attacks the liver, forming autoimmune liver disease.

Traditional Chinese medicine emphasizes the correspondence between man and nature. One of the important contents is that health preservation should correspond to the four seasons, and the same is true for liver care. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that the brief characteristics of the four seasons are "spring growth, summer growth, autumn harvest, and winter storage", and the state of the human body should also be consistent with the natural "growth and storage". The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine believes that in the "three months of summer", one should "sleep at night and get up early, not be tired of the sun, make the mind not angry, make the flowers and fruits bloom, and let the qi be released, as if what you love is outside". This means that you can sleep a little later in the summer, but still need to get up earlier; don't skip normal activities because the summer is too hot; adjust the bad mood caused by the hot summer weather, let people's spirit grow and flourish like all things in nature, so that the body's growth qi can be smooth and the bad qi can be adjusted. Only in this way can the liver be healthy. On this basis, avoiding bad habits that easily affect the liver, paying attention to regular work and rest, exercising in moderation, and eating a reasonable diet are the protection of the liver, which will also reduce or avoid the occurrence of liver diseases to the greatest extent.

(The author is the director of the Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine Hepatology, Department of Hepatology, Fifth Medical Center, PLA General Hospital)