The liver weighs about three pounds and performs more than 500 functions for the body.  After the brain, heart and lungs, the liver is the most important organ. Because the liver is so important, your body is designed so that if as much as 80% of your liver were cut out, it would grow back to full size in approximately 3 months! Your body can function almost normally with as little as 1/6th of your liver. Because the liver is designed in this way, it is usually hard to determine if the liver is damaged until the damage is quite advanced.
Traditional Chinese medicine says the liver and kidneys are the organs that “age” us. For this reason, almost all longevity herbs used in Chinese medicine are liver and kidney tonics. Without a clean, efficient liver and healthy kidneys, toxins and waste products are not filtered out of the blood, which then becomes heavier and more sluggish. This causes poor circulation and reduced oxygen and nutrient carrying capacity. As a result, tissues fed by the blood are undernourished. Cells begin to deteriorate and age. The eye and brain cells are especially affected because the blood has to flow against gravity to reach them.
The Master Cleanse is a great way to cleanse your liver and kidneys at the same time as increasing your body’s hydration (the percentage of water in your body).
Some Major Liver Functions:

  • Making three-quarters of your total cholesterol, which is used to produce hormones and bile salts.
  • Storing as much as 1 liter of blood in times of excess blood volume to be able to supply it in times of blood loss or heavy exercise.
  • Metabolizing up to ½ ounce of alcohol per hour.
  • Making 1 quart of bile per day for fat metabolism and neutralizing the acidity of toxins.
  • Detoxifying incompletely digested proteins, excess hormones (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, etc.), drugs, food additives, poisons, etc.
  • Converting beta-carotene to Vitamin A.
  • Breaking down and absorbing vitamins A, D, E, and K. (If your liver is dysfunctional, you will not be able to metabolize these vitamins, no matter how much you take!)
  • Storing excess vitamin A, B-12, D, K, and iron.
  • Converting ammonia, a byproduct of protein metabolism, into urea for kidney excretion.
  • Filtering out bacteria in the blood from the intestines before it enters general circulation.
  • Synthesizing up to 4 ounces of glucose daily, if needed; for example, during fasting or diabetes.
  • Reducing blood sugar swings up to 65%.