Seeking Advice about Doing a Liver Cleanse

[solarliving]

Greetings raw friends,

I am thinking of doing a liver cleanse, but I have some concerns. I have never done any sort of strategic cleanse, just been eating mostly raw for the last 4 yrs. My concern is the Gallstones that people pass. Do they ever get stuck where people have to go the hospital? If any of you have advice about this and/or different cleanses for the liver that have worked for you, I would be grateful for your knowledge.

Thanks,

Solar

[Gaius]

If you do it with the Epsom salts, it's perfectly safe.

[solarliving]

Thanks so much for responding. So If I use Epsom salt I will be ok? I'm curious what else people use that ends up causing problems or if that has even ever happened? I'm probably being paranoid, it's just that the pictures I've seen of the stones look pretty large. Seems like that could be painful to pass them.

This is the recipe I found and it looks like they suggest epsom salt.
http://www.free-fad-diets.com/liver-detox-diet.html

[gabriele]

Ok, not trying to stir up trouble here, but i was cruising around Dr. McDougall's website and found this little tidbit: (might want to consider this before trying a liver cleanse)......i personally don't care one way or the other, just like to get all the facts first!

"“Liver Cleansing” with Olive Oil and Lemon Juice – Myth



Could these be gallstones? Asked Christian Sies in the April 16, 2005 issue of the Lancet. A 40-year-old patient with many 1 to 2 mm gallstones underwent a “liver cleansing” with apple and vegetable juice, followed by 600 ml (20 ounces) of olive oil and 300 ml (10 ounces) of lemon juice, taken over several hours. She painlessly passed semisolid green “stones” with her stool. She brought them to her doctor, who examined them under a microscope and found no crystalline structures (as would be seen in an actual gallstone). Heating to 40 degree C for 10 minutes caused the “stones” to melt. Analysis showed they contained no cholesterol, bilirubin, or calcium (like a real stone might have). Chemical analysis found the “stones” were fat globules mostly from the olive oil. The investigators next made similar balls that looked like stones in their lab by mixing olive oil and lemon juice and then drying the mixture. Sometime later, the actual stones, which were made of cholesterol, were removed from the woman’s gallbladder by a surgeon.



Comments: Many people believe this alternative therapy really works, but the “gallbladder flush” is a myth. Gallstones are a result of supersaturation of the bile with cholesterol from the Western diet and they become stubbornly packed in the gallbladder. About 15% of people in Western societies have gallstones – eventually they become so common in middle-aged women that as many as half of them carry around stones – and most don’t know it. Gallstones that cause no pain or other symptoms should be left alone, rather than removed. (For more information on gallstones, please see my newsletter: April 2002 – A Stone-Free and Happy Gallbladder and May 2002 – Die With Your Gallstones.)


Sies CW, Brooker J. Could these be gallstones? Lancet. 2005 Apr;365(9468):1388.