How do we know if our livers are dysfunctional or operational? If we suffer from ongoing nausea, headaches, fatigue and tummy pain chances are our livers are playing up. Or we might be suffering from none of these and we might only find out that our livers are under siege once we have a routine blood test which demonstrates that our liver enzymes are elevated. Alcohol and weight gain are the most common causes of liver dysfunction. Then there are a number of viruses, excess iron and copper, coeliac disease, associated with gluten consumption, found in wheat, rye, oats and barley and a host of drugs including paracetamol, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications like naprosyn, voltaren and brufen, antidepressants, the contraceptive pill, anabolic steroids and even widely used antibiotics such as amoxil, flucloxacillin and bactrim, all of which having the potential to damage the liver.
Once it is revealed that our livers are under threat there are a bunch of investigations we need to undertake to home in on the underlying cause so that it can be corralled and managed before it does us any harm that is hard to reverse.