Good News for Coffee Drinkers

Time for some health news! Today we’ve learned that drinking decaf coffee can boost your liver’s health. Why is this good news? Well, your liver’s got a lot of responsibility in your body as its second largest organ (next to the almighty skin organ). Consider it your body’s border control inspection, deciding what’s worthy of keeping around and deporting what’s not.

Your liver is quite the multi-tasker. It breaks down nutrients, seeks to rid you of all those unwanted toxins that find their way into your being, helps you along in the art of digestion, and makes proteins. And here we are making its job all the more difficult with the dreaded alcohol consumption.

While we all know that easing off the booze is step 1 towards a healthier functioning liver, what we didn’t know was that decaf coffee could actually help, rather than hinder, this vital organ. How is this so? The National Cancer Institute carried out a study published in the journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. which showed that those with higher coffee consumption came across with lower levels of abnormal liver enzymes, leading the researchers to believe that the chemical compounds found within coffee could actually contribute towards a healthier liver. Really?

The research team measured the blood levels of almost 28,000 participants through a liver function lens, looking for higher or lower levels of the various indicators of good and bad liver health. Each person (20 years or older) gave their coffee intake over a 24 hour period. Interestingly, they got these results regardless of whether that coffee was caffeinated or not, but if you’re about to up your coffee intake purely to help your liver along, you’d be best off sticking with decaf.

There are many other more natural ways to protect your liver. Here’s three you can eat today.

1. Garlic works to activate the enzymes in your liver that do the flushing out of toxins, thanks to its high sulphur levels. This superfood is actually quite the unbeatable all rounder. Eat it. Lots of it.

2. Asparagus is not only quite the luxury vegetable, it also acts as a fantastic diuretic that helps along with the body’s cleansing process, taking a load off your liver and kidneys who’ve got enough to be doing.

3. Beetroot and carrots. Both of these colourful heroes are packed full of plant flavanoids and beta-carotene that are essential for a healthy liver. What’s more, there’s lots of Glutathione in your carrots which is a protein that help the detoxification process.

@CarolineForan

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