It also plays a big role in the metabolism of fats and helps to control blood sugar and cholesterol. Not only that, but it can also act as a storehouse for fat soluble vitamins such as vitamin A, D, E, and K, as well as the vitamin B12, in addition to glycogen and iron, storing them when the body doesn’t need it and then releasing it for later use when the body calls for it.

For good health, you want to take good care of your liver by eating a healthy diet that includes avoiding processed foods, eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and sticking to organic foods whenever you can. There are also some food you might want to include in your diet such as broccoli, radishes and artichokes that are known to be good for the liver.

While eating right will help your liver maintain its current level of health, if it’s already overtaxed you might want to start taking some liver detoxification herbs which will help restore it to a good level of health. These herbs include:

Milk Thistle

Milk thistle is a potent liver protecting herb and probably the best-known of the herbs when it comes to treating the liver. Hundreds of studies have been done on this herb and it has been shown to be able to, not only protect the liver, but also to help regenerate it after damage. This purple flower has many other health benefits and no noted side effects so it’s a good idea to add it to your daily diet.

Dandelion

Who knew that the yellow things you try to purge from your lawn could be helpful to your liver? This plant, which some consider a weed, is actually full of vitamins and minerals and can act as a diuretic as well as a gentle laxative in addition to detoxifying the liver and stimulating bile flow. It also helps to normalize your PH level and is great for your kidneys to!

Turmeric

Turmeric has been used in both Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine for centuries but recently the Western world is starting to see its benefits too. It has uses in treating liver diseases such as cirrhosis and hepatitis and it’s good for the general health of the liver. But it’s not just the liver that will benefit from turmeric. Turmeric has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties and can help relieve menstrual cramps, decrease congestion, improve intestinal flora and even treat skin conditions.

Using liver detoxification herbs is a great way to help keep your liver in top shape. Making sure you take care of your liver now will ensure that it takes care of you for the rest of your life.

Detoxification is important, because your body is constantly absorbing toxins from your environment and most likely cannot filter them at the rate they are being absorbed. The result is that the toxins build up and lead to aging and disease so one way to regain your vitality is by using herbs that detox the body once or twice a year to clean out your main organs – the liver, kidneys and lungs.

You can use herbs to detox the body either in pill form, in teas or in extracts. In many cases you can find pre-formulated pills with these herbs in them that are made specifically for the purpose of detoxification cleansing. You’ll probably want to also follow a good detoxification diet and make sure that you detox all the organs at the same time because they work in conjunction with each other and if one of them is full of toxins it really won’t do as much good to be detoxifying the others.

Here’s a list of some of the herbs that detox the body and the organ that they work on:

Lungs – your lungs are huge filtering devices and it’s important to keep them healthy so you want to include them in any detox program. Some of the herbs that work to detox the lungs include marshmallow, slippery elm, Chinese ephedra, senega, mullein and LH Comfrey.

Liver – when talking about ways to detox the body, the liver is often the first organ mentioned because its main job is to filter toxins and without good liver health, you will find that the rest of your body will soon fall into disrepair. There are several herbs that help detoxify the liver and these include dandelion, goldenrod, chamomile, horsetail, parsley, blessed thistle, red beet, black cohosh, gentian and angelica.

Kidneys – kidneys are also key filtering organs so you want to keep them in tip top shape by doing a detox kidney cleanse periodically. The herbs to include in this cleanse include dandelion, parsley, marshmallow, juniper, ginger, cedar berries, goldenseal and dong quai.

As you can see, many of these herbs that detox the body work on more than one organ so you can easily combine these herbs into an easy to follow detox program. So, when you are coming up with ways to detox the body don’t forget to include a good herbal cleanse in your program.

One way to flush out these toxins is to juicing. Now I don’t mean from drinking juices that you buy in the store because those juices are processed and sometimes have additives (toxins). They are also stripped of their beneficial enzymes as well as some of the nutrients when they are processed. So when I talk about juicing, I’m talking about juicing your own fresh fruits and vegetables and drinking the juices when it is still fresh.

Your fresh juice is made using a juice extractor. A juice extractor is a blender like machine that extracts up to 90% of the juices from the fruits and vegetables and filters out the pulp

Juicing is great for your body because the process extracts all the enzymes, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients intact from the fiber of the fruit or vegetable. Then when you drink the juice, your body doesn’t have to do any of the work of digestion to extract these nutrients and the nutrients can literally be absorbed straight into the body.

Here are some excellent juicer detox recipes to begin with. (Serving sizes for all recipes is 8 ounces):

Apple Kiwi Juice Recipe -

3 kiwis, peeled
2 apples, cored and sliced

Process the fruit in a juicer and serve.

Apple Pineapple Ginger Juice Recipe -

1 apple cored and sliced
1-cup fresh pineapple, cubed, skin removed
1/2-inch fresh ginger

Juice the apple and ginger together, then juice the pineapple and serve.

Blueberry Grape Juice Recipe -

Handful of grapes
1-cup blueberries, fresh or thawed from frozen

Process the fruit in a juicer and serve.

Carrot Juice (The King of Juices) -

Wash 4-5 carrots and juice.

Carrot and Beet Juice –

4 beets
4 carrots

Process the ingredients in a juicer and serve. Add a few basil leaves

Carrot Radish Apple Sparkling Lemonade -

1 carrot
2 apples
1 beet
1 whole lemon
10 radishes

Process the ingredients in a juicer and serve. Add 1 cup of sparkling mineral water.

Cucumber Celery Cooler Recipe -

4 medium carrots, greens removed
1/4 medium cucumber, peeled
1 stalk celery
1 apple, sliced
1/2 lemon, peeled (optional)

Process the ingredients in a juicer and serve.

Pineapple Orange Strawberry Cocktail -

1 orange, peeled and sectioned
1-cup fresh pineapple, cubed, skin removed
5 strawberries

Process the fruit in a juicer and serve.

Strawberry Smoothie -

30-60 strawberries
9-13 medium or large bananas
7-8 cups fresh squeezed orange juice
1-cup flaxseed meal

Blend until Creamy.

But you don’t have to stick to these juicer detox recipes to enjoy the great effects of juicing. Simply combine your own mixture of fruits and vegetables and make your own favorite drink. Your taste buds and your whole body will thank you!

You’ll find differing opinions on this; some people say its hogwash while others claim it works wonders. Manufacturers say it is formulated based on centuries-old Eastern medicine that uses the science of reflexology. In reflexology, all your organs are represented on the soles of the feet and since the feet have more porous than any other place on the body is a great place to apply a patch that will draw out toxins.

These detox foot patches are filled with all-natural materials. They include tourmaline – a mineral that we often see in jewelry but which produces negative ions which work on the meridian points on your feet helping draw out the toxins and aiding in circulation. They also contain cleansing herbs like peppermint and eucalyptus as well as tree saps and barks, which also helps to extract the toxins.

The foot detox pad helps cleanse your body by drawing out toxins and toxic metals through your feet. It works with your own body’s natural defense system, which works to move toxins away from your vital organs drawing them down towards the feet. As your body is already working in that way, the detox patch helps along with its combination of Chinese herbs that literally draw the harmful toxins out of your body.

The patches or sachets, look like big teabags and are filled with a mixture of herbs. You apply them to the soles of your feet and secure them with an easy to remove tape. Then you simply go to sleep in the foot patches work during the night to draw the toxins out of your body leaving you feeling healthy and refreshed when you wake up. Not only will they draw out toxins, but also they’ll help the lymphatic system do its job and also help to remove excess water from your system.

While some people may say that the foot detox pad really doesn’t do anything for them, other have found that using  the patches give them a good nights sleep and make their feet feel great! If that’s the very least that theses foot detox patches do so be it. They’re inexpensive enough and a good nights sleep is worth more than the cost of the patches, and if you get the added benefit of having some toxins removed from your body, then all the better!

One thing that you can do if you want to help your body in the detoxification process is to be sure to pick organic foods whenever you can. Organic foods are grown without chemicals and pesticides so eating them will not add any extra toxins to your body. While non-organic foods might be less expensive, they are usually full of toxins from the pesticides used to grow them and when you eat the foods, toxins go right into your body thus adding an extra load on your detoxification system. Spending a little bit more on organic foods now will probably save you a lot of money in medical bills later on.

One merely needs to look at nature to find the foods that detoxify the body best. Fresh fruits and vegetables (organically grown, of course) are among the best detoxifiers. Onions, cauliflower and broccoli are particularly good and artichokes are well known for helping detoxify the liver.

When eating fruit for detoxification purposes you want to be sure to use fresh fruits either the whole fruit or in a juice but eat it by itself at least two or three hours before or after any other types of food. All foods are good including melons, berries, citrus fruits, bananas, apples and nectarines.

While we often think of parsley is just a garnish for our plates it actually is a great detoxifying food as it is a powerful tonic that flushes the kidneys.

Garlic is well known for its health properties in one of these is that it is a potent blood cleanser that aids in the detoxification process. Garlic is best eaten when it is raw – mash up a clove and wait 10 minutes for active chemicals to activate and added on top of your pasta or bread for healthy treat.

Along with fruits and vegetables, there is a variety of herbs that are wonderful for detoxifying the body. Milk thistle, dandelion, marshmallow, turmeric and ginger are but a few.

Making sure that you eat plenty of foods that detoxify the body as well as doing a periodic body detox will help to offset the accumulation of toxins that can be so harmful to your health.

Our environment is full of toxins. Emissions from car exhaust, pesticides used to grow foods, mercury in fish we eat from polluted waters, toxic metals in the fillings in our teeth – these all eventually make their way into our body where they accumulate over the years. Yes, our body does have a natural system for removing these toxins but our world is becoming so toxic that our systems can’t keep up. As we age, more and more toxins accumulate in our tissues making it difficult for our body to function normally. Some experts believe that this accumulation of toxins is responsible for aging, disease and death.

Knowing how to detox at home is important because once you learn how to do this, you will be able to rid your body of accumulated toxins on a regular basis. This will go a long way to improving your health and longevity. Not to mention that it will make you feel great and give you a huge abundance of energy.

The first step, though, is to live a healthy lifestyle so that your body accumulates as little toxins as possible. This means eating organic foods, not smoking and avoiding alcohol. Having a filter on the water supply entering your home will help reduce the amount of toxins in your shower and bath water and in your drinking water.

Eating lots of raw fruits and vegetables will provide your body with the nutrients it needs to help with detoxification. Among the best vegetables to eat are the cruciferous vegetables, broccoli and cauliflower, as well as garlic and onions. Stay away from processed foods as they are full of additivs and chemicals and provide the body with very little nutrition yet takes a lot of energy to process.

When starting a home detox program, one should set aside several days where they can stay at home and rest during the beginning of the detox. This is especially important if you’ve never done a detox program because all those stored up toxins being purged from your body all at once can cause you to have flu like symptoms, rashes and even diarrhea. Don’t worry though, the symptoms will only last for a few days and then you will feel better than you ever have before.

One of the things that can help you learn how to detox at home is an herbal detox program. You must choose your program wisely and don’t make cost to be your primary deciding factor. You want a program that detoxifies your colon, liver and kidneys because they all work in conjunction with each other and detoxing only one of these organs will still leave an abundance of toxins in your body. There were many great herbal programs out there each lasting anywhere from a week to four weeks – choose one that fits your lifestyle and be prepared to fill better than you ever felt in your whole life!

The body is assaulted by toxins every day. They are in our food, our water, and even the air we breathe. These toxins get into our body and accumulate over time. It takes a lot of work for your body to flush out these toxins and as you get older and more and more toxins build up in your body, it simply can’t keep up. The result is that you become lacking in energy and are more susceptible to illness and disease.

While you can’t do anything to escape the toxins in your environment, you can do something to help your body cleanse itself of them. When thinking about detoxifying your body, you want to think about 4 areas of your body that need to be detoxed roughly at about the same time in order to get most of the toxins out. This includes the liver, skin the kidneys and the colon.

There are quite a few ways to detoxify the body and some include complicated mixtures of herbs while others simply focus on fasting. If you are considering herbal product, make sure you get one that detoxifies all four areas mentioned above. These detoxification programs can last anywhere from 1 week to a month.

Fasting has been a method of detoxification for centuries and it can be very effective. The best way to start is to do a one to three day vegetable juice fast – you can fast for longer but anything longer than three days should be done under medical supervision. What you want to do is get your body ready for the fast the day before by making your last meal consist of only fresh fruits and vegetables.

On the three days of fasting, prepare your own fresh vegetable juices in a juicer and drink them as often as you want. Juicing your own fresh vegetables as opposed to buying juices from the store will ensure that all the enzymes which your body needs are present (store-bought juices are typically pasteurized which kills the enzymes).

You can make juices out of any vegetable you want: lettuce, greens, tomatoes, cucumbers. Experiment with recipes to see what you like best and be sure to drink the juice as soon as you make it. During your fasting days be sure that you get a lot of rest and relaxation and don’t schedule any exercise for the three days.

One of the most important ways to detoxify the body is through a colon cleanse. A huge amount of toxins accumulate in your colon and the colon is critical for your health. In fact, some doctors believe that all disease starts in the colon. The best way to do this is to have a colon cleansing, which is really a simple and painless process. This will lead to the colon of all impacted fecal matter and leave you feeling quite refreshed if not a few pounds lighter. They’re also herbal mixtures you can take orally that help move things out of the colon.

Your skin is the largest organ on your body and is a huge filter for toxins, which leave your body via sweat coming out of your pores. Using only natural soaps and making sure you have a water filter on your shower head will help to keep your skin in good condition. Brushing your skin regularly with a special skin brush can help remove the dead layers and keep your pores in good working order.

Another area you want to think about is your kidneys which are another important filtering organ. The best way to keep your kidneys in good shape is to drink a lot of water. You’d better make sure, however, the water is free from contaminants so you really should have a good filtering system in your home. When you’re doing a juice fast, you also want to include distilled water because distilled water is free of any chemicals and minerals. However, drinking distilled water all the time is not recommended as it can leach important minerals from your body.

Your body is exposed to toxic metals such as mercury, arsenic and lead and one of the ways to detoxify the body that is becoming more popular is chelation therapy, which helps to get rid of these metals. Chelation therapy needs to be administered via an IV drip through a medical professional. Recent studies are showing that having chelation therapy can help remove plaque from the arteries.

If you want to reduce the signs of aging and remain healthy and live well into your 90s, then you should seriously consider detoxifying your body periodically. It might be a little bit of work and sacrifice, but the rewards will be well worth it.

Detoxing can be a shock to your body.  All the toxins and heavy metals that are hanging around are suddenly dredged up and purged from the body.  This can cause all kinds of weird side effects and, depending on your level of toxicity, it can make you feel quite ill.

When it comes to safely detoxing, fasting is a much debated subject.  Many people say that fasting will help knock the toxins out of your body quicker, but the other side of the coin is that you are cleansing organs like the liver, which can easily become overwhelmed with the amount of toxins that are now being flushed out.  This is particularly true if you haven’t done any detoxification before and all the toxins that are then stored in your body for years or even decades now come rushing out to be purged.

In order to follow a safe detox diet, moderation may be the key.  First of all you want to make sure that you are eating properly – no processed foods and try to stick to only organic foods when possible.  Eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables is important. Garlic, onions, broccoli and kale can all be important vegetables to start eating a lot of just before your detox diet.

Fruits can help you detox too, but they are full of sugar so you want to stick with eating them in the morning and make sure that you eat fruits by themselves and not with any other types of food.

While you should get plenty of vegetables and at every meal, you also want to drink lots of water and make sure you take some herbs that support detoxification and are healthy for your liver, lungs and kidneys.

Two of the best detoxifying herbs are dandelion and milk thistle.  Other herbs you might consider include parsley, turmeric, chamomile, marshmallow, slippery elm, goldenseal and ginger.  Your liver and other organs also need important amino acids and protein in order to function, so make sure to eat some lean organic protein at each meal as well.  Include some nuts and vitamin supplements which will help round out any of the vitamins and minerals you might be missing.

Following a safe detox diet is really a matter of eating healthy and trying to avoid foods that you know are loaded with toxins or foods that have low nutritional value.  In addition, you can try to make sure that you remove other toxins from your environment, such as using a good water filter not just for your drinking water, but for the water you shower and bathe in, and  living a healthy lifestyle.

But, you don’t have to settle for bad health because a full body detox can help flush the toxins out of your system and restore the youthful vitality and energy you once had.

Detoxing your body is not a new concept; in fact, Eastern medicine has used herbs for detoxification for centuries. Back then, you had to pick your own herbs and make your own concoction but today there are many packaged products that can help you detox your body.

But before you deciding on a full body detox, you might want to first change your lifestyle to something less toxic so that the toxins don’t just build up in your system again.

What does this entail?

This means being careful about the foods that you eat. Avoid anything processed that comes in a package and stick with the foods that nature provides. Lean meats, fruits, vegetables and nuts are ideal but you better make sure that you buy organic or you will just end up eating a bunch of pesticides and toxins. Eating your fruits and vegetables raw will provide your body with essential enzymes that help with the digestive and detoxification processes.

Once you change your eating habits, stop smoking and avoid alcohol you’ll notice a change in your health and energy levels right away, but you still might have a lot of built-up toxins in your body and doing an herbal detox program can help flush those out so you can get your body into the best shape possible and start feeling your best. When you are deciding on a program, you want to be sure to pick one that detoxifies the liver, colon and kidneys so that all the toxins can be flushed all at once.

In the beginning stages of your full body detox, you might notice that you actually start to feel sicker. This is normal and it’s due to the toxins being released from the cells in your body. It only lasts for a few days so you have to tough it out and know that you’ll feel much better after the detox is over. Once you detox is done you might find that it has helped relieve a host of problems including headaches, constipation, joint pain, insomnia, digestive problems and irritability.

What kind of toxins are you exposed to?

What most people don’t realize is toxins are everywhere. Pollution in the air, pesticides in your food and even some common, everyday items around your home can cause toxins in your body. Cigarette smoking, alcohol and pharmaceuticals are all toxic and need to be purged from your body through its natural detoxification processes. Even the fluoride in your drinking water and toothpaste can accumulate in your body and become toxic to your body and contribute to disease.

Even the food you eat everyday is toxic – just read a list of ingredients on any packaged food and you see a bunch of things you won’t recognize – these are usually chemicals that can accumulate to toxic levels in the body over time. Combine that with pesticides used to grow fruits and vegetables and you can see why so many of us do not enjoy the health that we should.

If you want to regain your vibrant health then you need to learn how to get rid of toxins in the body. But before you do that, you need to learn to live a less toxic lifestyle. One big step you can make towards that is to quit smoking and avoid alcohol. Another big step is to eat only organic foods and including lots of fresh fruits and vegetables in your diet.

The next thing you want to do is to purge your body of the toxins you’ve accumulated so far. This can be done through the use of herbs and there are many herbal detoxification products out on the market. Usually these are taken as a liquid or a pill and the whole detoxification process can take anywhere from one to four weeks.

During this time, you might actually start to feel sicker but this is a good sign because it means that your body is purging out the toxins that have been building up in your tissues. The toxins will come out in your waste and from your pores and you might end up with flu-like symptoms for a few days, but after wards you will start to feel better and eventually you will begin to feel and look healthier than you have in years.

Once you learn how to get rid of toxins in the body, you’ll never want to go back to your toxic lifestyle. Being good to your body and making sure that all your organs are working at peak performance will improve your levels of energy, your youthful vitality, and your longevity.