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Happy March! This month we celebrate your glorious liver!

In this newsletter:

• 6 Liver Health Tips
• Upcoming Fullscript promotion
• Reminder about my FREE digestive health online support group

We have a saying in naturopathic medicine: When in doubt, treat the liver!

Why? Your liver carries out over 500 different and very important jobs, including:

• Giving you fuel to function! The liver turns food into energy and releases stored energy when you're not eating.
• Eliminating waste from the body
• Fighting infections
• Neutralizing and eliminating drugs and toxins
• Making and regulating hormones like estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone
• Regulating cholesterol
• Making enzymes and proteins needed for most chemical resactions in the body (ex. blood clotting and tissue repair)

In other words, your liver is super important. When you are at a loss with your health, supporting your liver is often a great place to start.

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Here are 6 ways to support your liver:

#1: Add a liver cleanse product

While it would be ideal if we all consistently made healthy choices that support our liver health, in reality, most of us just don't. In addition, for most of us, the liver has to process a wide variety of environmental toxins every day. In a perfect world, the liver would easily manage all of this, but it can happen that too much strain on the liver makes it difficult to keep up with the demand. When the burden on the liver gets to be too much, a variety of symptoms can start to arise, from hormone imbalance, acne and skin rashes, fatigue, digestive issues, and more.

Supporting the liver every so often with a cleanse can be a great way to boost your liver function. It is ideal to do a cleanse when the seasons are changing so this is the perfect time!

One commercially available liver cleanse option is Renew Life's 30-day Liver Detox and Cleansing Program.

Alternatively, many of my patients will use Liver GI Detox by Pure Encapsulations (available on Fullscript or through my office) or MediClear or MediClear Plus by Thorne (available on Fullscript).

Liver cleanse products like these deliver nutrients and herbal extracts that support elimination of waste and improve liver function. Cleanses are usually 2-3 weeks long.

FYI: Fullscript has a patient promotion coming up March 14-15 so if you need to refill or purchase any new supplements, you could receive a significant discount during their promotion!

#2: Eat to nourish your liver

Many foods are nourishing to the liver, including:

• vegetables (raw or cooked) especially leafy green vegetables
• fruit* (in moderation)
• olive oil
• fresh herbs
• beans, and legumes 

In general, avoiding caffeine, red meat, seafood, eggs, dairy foods (milk, cheese, etc.), bread, flour products, sugar, honey, artificial sweeteners, peanuts, nuts, nut butters, and cooked grains will help reduce strain on the liver

#3: Avoid alcohol

Alcohol is toxic to the liver. The liver works hard to break alcohol down into compounds that are easy to eliminate. When trying to optimize liver function, avoiding alcohol is essential.

#4: Avoid deep-fried foods

Deep-fried foods like chips and French fries are high in bad fat that strain the liver. When trying to optimize liver function, avoiding deep-fried foods is helpful.

#5: Support other detox pathways

The body has many methods of eliminating waste: lungs (breath), bowels (stool), kidneys (urine), skin (sweat), and emotional release. All of the following are ways to improve elimination of toxins, thereby reducing strain on the liver:

1. Move your body to help circulate blood and lymph. Bonus points if exercise gets you huffing and puffing and sweating!
2. Emphasize sweat treatments like sauna and even a hot bath. **Use caution here, especially if you have low blood pressure or easily feel lightheaded. Drink lots of water and consider adding salt or electrolytes to drinking water
3. Increase water intake. The more you drink, the more your body has to flush out and each time you urinate you eliminate toxins. **You also eliminate electrolytes so if you choose to significantly increase water intake to support detox, you may need to supplement with minerals and/or electrolytes to prevent a deficiency. Reach out for more info on this.
4. Do intentional breathing exercises such as square breathing or 4-7-8 breathing. Most of us don't breathe properly so even just spending 5 minutes a day focusing on intentionally inhaling and exhaling (on repeat) can improve our breathing.
5. Increase dietary fibre: ground flax seed and psyllium husk are two of my favourite fibre sources. Increasing plant foods in the diet will naturally increase fibre. If fibre causes bloating or gas, using a “Low FODMAP” fibre is often a good option.
6. Let yourself feel and express your emotions. Crying and other emotional outlets like punching/yelling/screaming into a pillow or into the forest (or wherever it feels appropriate) is helpful. Liver ailments are commonly thought to have an association with anger. So go ahead and let it all out (safely)!

Breathing exercises:

Best done for 5-20 minutes for best effect

• Square breathing: inhale for 4 counts, hold for 4 counts, exhale for 4 counts, hold exhale for 4 counts.
• 4-7-8 breathing: inhale for 4 counts, hold for 7 counts, exhale for 8 counts. Repeat.

#6: Avoid sugar and artificial sweeteners

All forms of sugar (ex. brown, white, molasses, honey, maple syrup), artificial sweeteners (aspartame, sucralose) and even just an abundance of fructose (even if from fruit or fruit juice) can stress the liver. Limiting these sweeteners is advised when optimizing liver function. Acceptable sweeteners include stevia and monkfruit sweetener. Naturally sweet-tasting spices like cinnamon, licorice, fennel, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg are also great options.

There are several more ways to improve liver function and support detoxification. To discuss a personalized liver detox program designed with you and your health goals in mind, please schedule an appointment.

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Clinic Updates

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Upcoming Fullscript Promotion

Fullscript is my online dispensary, which is a great way to purchase professional quality supplements and have them shipped directly to your door.

Those of you who already have an account with Fullscript will have automatic access to the upcoming promotion March 14-15. This is a great time to stock up on the supplements you and your family already routinely use.

If you are an existing patient and would like me to set you up with Fullscript, please respond to this email and I will establish an account for you so you can take advantage of this promo.

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Please Review Me!

As a reminder, I could really use your help! Please take a minute to leave me an online review. These help improve my online visibility so I can help even more people! It’s quick and easy to leave a 5-star review on Google and Rate MD. For those who choose to leave me a review, and to those who already have, I am so grateful for your support!

You can now follow me on TikTok and enjoy my silly and educational videos!

That's all for this month! Wishing you vibrant health this March!

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Until next month!

Dr. Erica Volk

Your Friendly Naturopathic Doctor

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www.okanagannaturopath.com

hello@drericavolk.com

Tel: 778.760.3400 Fax: 844-991-3601

428-665 Cook Road | Kelowna, BC | V1W 4T4

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