(Re)Introduction to Your Body's Most Important Organ

While the liver is one of the least sexy organs to talk about, there is no doubt that it plays an incredibly important and underappreciated role in your health.

Your liver makes over 10,000 enzymes and over 1000 biochemicals that the body requires for healthy functioning.  It maintains healthy blood sugar, keep your hormones balanced and makes essential compounds such as cholesterol (most of the cholesterol in your body is made by the liver, not derived from your diet).

All of the chemicals that we are exposed to, from diet, water and air, or filtered and detoxified by the liver.  These include preservatives, pesticides, heavy metals, air pollutants and many other chemicals.

In my patients I have seen how chemical overload can weaken the liver and lead to a variety of symptoms such as fatigue, hormone imbalance, chemical sensitivity and other problems.

In the next post I'll talk about how to keep your liver happy!

A Lesson in Humility

Doctors have discovered a new ligament in the human knee.

It's amazing that we are continuing to learn new things about the human body every day, even about parts that were thought to be pretty well understood such as the knee.  To me, it highlights the complexity of the body and is also a good reminder to be humble about what we know in medicine.  If a completely new ligament could be "found" in something so commonplace and prosaic like the knee, I wonder what other things we don't know about the human body that we will find out in the years ahead?

New York Times article reporting this discovery

I believe it's always helpful to keep in mind that there are many different ways of thinking about and looking at health and illness.  There are many different paradigms that each serve as a different lens through which we can view the body.  Even if we don't agree with all aspects of a different perspective, I think it expands our mind to just consider these possibilities and think about "what if this was true?"

In this context I would like to share this article about how the African shaman Malidoma Some has a completely different perspective on mental illness from our Western psychiatric paradigm:

http://beyondmeds.com/2012/09/03/what-a-shaman-sees/