Although the liver may not be an attractive organ it is an extremely important one that has a month-long health observance named after it by the American Liver Foundation (www.liverfoundation.org), called Liver Awareness Month.

Reasons to love our liver abound since this organ does all of the following, and more: saves up energy; makes bile to help break down food; keeps pollution from hurting us; stops cuts from bleeding too long; kills germs; gets rid of toxic chemicals; and helps build muscle.

According to the foundation, liver disease affects one in 10 Americans, or about 30 million people — including children.

Liver disease begins with inflammation. If left untreated, especially over time, inflamed liver tissue starts to scar or become fibrous, which is called fibrosis. If fibrosis is not treated or healed, irreversible damage can occur, called cirrhosis; this can lead to liver cancer. If the liver loses most or all of its function, a life-threatening condition called liver failure can result.

To make matters worse, there is also hepatitis C, a disease of the liver that is caused by the hepatitis C virus, or HCV. While it is fortunate that 15 to 40 percent of people who contract HCV are able to successfully fight off the virus within the first six months, sadly most of the patients who are not able to get rid of the virus wind up developing a long-term, chronic hepatitis C infection.

One of the most common reasons for liver transplants, more than four million Americans have been infected with hepatitis C and the virus is responsible for 8,000 to 10,000 deaths every year.

Hope Emerges: Alpha Lipoic Acid

One nutrient that has been the subject of research and which shows the greatest promise for liver health has curiously not yet attained the level of popularity enjoyed by milk thistle; it is: alpha lipoic acid.

Alpha lipoic acid (or ALA) was first discovered by University of Illinois enzymologist Irwin Gunsalus in 1948 and described and characterized by University of Texas biochemist Lester J. Reed in March 1951.

It is a natural substance that, according to ALA pioneer Burt Berkson, M.D., in the December 2007 edition of the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, is the “rate-limiting factor for the production of energy from carbohydrates.” In other words, without alpha lipoic acid we could not obtain energy from the food we eat and we could not stay alive.

The first large-scale human clinical studies using alpha lipoic acid in the U.S. were conducted by Berkson, Frederick C. Bartter, M.D., and other scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the 1970s. The researchers gave the nutrient to 79 people with severe liver damage; 75 of those, according to Berkson, recovered full liver function.

More recently, in 1999 Berkson published three case reports using a triple-antioxidant supplement regimen in patients with liver disease, including chronic hepatitis C infection. After several months of treatment with a combination of alpha lipoic acid, selenium and silymarin, all three patients recovered most or all of their liver function, avoided liver transplantation and went on to live healthy, productive lives free of the symptoms of liver disease.

From 2006 to 2008, a number of studies in humans and animals have shown that alpha lipoic acid can provide important improvements in the following: recovery following liver surgery; protection from chemotherapy side effects and chemical poisoning; liver regeneration; and protection against liver and kidney damage from acetaminophen-containing drugs (e.g., Tylenol, Anacin-3 and Percocet).

Considering that acetaminophen poisoning sends over 56,000 people to emergency rooms each year in the U.S., these study results are all the more impressive.

It doesn’t hurt, of course, that alpha lipoic acid also helps in the areas of nerve health (e.g., diabetic neuropathy), metabolic health (e.g., insulin resistance and weight control) and brain health.

In an industrialized society heavily burdened by pollution and toxic chemicals, alpha lipoic acid has emerged as a nutritional beacon of hope.

By James J. Gormley

Health News from NetNewsPublisher.com