The Hidden Link Between Liver Health, Hormones, Gut Health & Thyroid Function

When most people think about liver health, they think about alcohol—but your liver does so much more than detoxify. It's responsible for breaking down hormones like estrogen, producing bile for healthy digestion, supporting thyroid hormone conversion, regulating cholesterol, and helping your body eliminate toxins.

In this episode of the podcast, I'm breaking down why your liver plays such a crucial role in hormone balance, gut health, digestion, and energy—and why supporting it goes far beyond doing a trendy "liver cleanse."

You'll learn:

• Why poor liver function can contribute to estrogen dominance, PMS, painful periods, acne, and heavy menstrual bleeding
• The connection between your liver, bile flow, constipation, bloating, and fat digestion
• How your liver influences thyroid hormone conversion and symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, weight gain, and feeling cold
• Common signs your liver may need extra support
• The best foods and nutrients to naturally support liver detoxification
• Simple ways to reduce your toxic load without becoming overwhelmed
• My favorite evidence-informed liver support strategies, including castor oil packs, dandelion root tea, and NAC

If you've been told your labs are "normal" but you're still struggling with digestive issues, hormone symptoms, or low energy, this episode will help you understand why looking beyond the affected organ and supporting the whole body matters.

Resources Mentioned:

• Download my free Liver Support Guide

Interested in working together with functional lab testing? Check out my 1-1 program here. 

Click here to join The Period Protocol (option to add 1:1 session)

If you have questions, let's chat! You can contact me on Instagram or by email at info@thenourishedway.ca 

Disclaimer: The information shared in this podcast is not individual or medical advice. Please consult your physician or healthcare provider regarding any medical conditions or treatment plans.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome back to the Nourished Way podcast. On today's episode, we're going to be talking about an organ that tends to be overlooked when it comes to hormone balance, digestion, and gut health, especially in the conventional medical world or mainstream medical world. And that organ is your liver. When most people think of their liver, they think of detoxing alcohol, which of course, this is the responsibility of the liver, but the liver does so much more. So your liver is like the hardest working, busiest employee in a very busy company. It has hundreds of jobs every single day, including detoxing alcohol if you drink, but it also breaks down your hormones after they've been used. It filters your blood, it makes bile so that you can digest fats. It plays a crucial role in your thyroid function. It processes and metabolizes cholesterol. So the liver is very busy. And when it's not working optimally, which we will talk about why this happens and why it's so common, we can really see issues popping up or symptoms showing up from head to toe. We don't need to see liver numbers come back abnormal on a blood test to know that your liver needs support. A really big part of what we do with clients is we are starting with a comprehensive assessment of your health history and your symptom presentation. We are listening to biofeedback from your body combined with the information that we get from lab testing. So biofeedback means how is your energy? How is your digestion, your bowel movements, your menstrual cycle, your periods, your hair, your moods? Do you have PMS? These are all really important pieces of information combined with the data that we get from lab testing that really guide us forward in supporting our clients. In today's episode, we're going to talk about the role that the liver plays in detoxification, how it impacts your menstrual cycle and your periods, your skin, your digestion, and your thyroid function. The liver is the body's main detoxification organ, but it does have a lot of other jobs. And like I said, it tends to be really overlooked when it comes to hormone issues and digestive symptoms. Towards the end of the episode, we'll talk about ways that you can support your liver using a food-first approach. So we'll talk about specific nutrients to incorporate with your foods to support your liver. We'll talk about some lifestyle strategies and some supplements that you can include. And the goal here really is to support your liver on a daily basis. So I am not an advocate of doing liver cleanses, liver flushes, seasonal cleanses, anything like that. I really think most of those things that you're going to see online are just gimmicks with good marketing behind them. Really, we want to be supporting our liver on a daily basis so that it can do what it is designed to do, which is all of those jobs that I just listed. Okay, so let's dive in and talk first about the role of the liver in your menstrual cycle and your periods. So estrogen is one of the main reproductive hormones for women. And once it is done its job in the body, it needs to be broken down, which happens in the liver, and then it gets sent off to your gut where it should be eliminated through bowel movements. If hormones are not being cleared properly from the body, so if they're not being detoxified in the liver or if you are constipated and not having regular complete bowel movements, those hormones can build up so they can start to recirculate and create imbalances. So if this detoxification process isn't working the way that it should, estrogen can be reabsorbed into the body. So we get this used up estrogen that ends up recirculating, and this can really lead to an overload and an imbalance called estrogen dominance. If you've ever had really bad period pain or you've had really heavy periods, this might be a familiar term for you, but basically it means there is too much estrogen relative to progesterone. It's a really common hormone imbalance and it can happen for a few reasons. But one of the main ones that I see with clients is estrogen is not leaving the body when it should be. So some of the more common symptoms that are associated with estrogen dominance are going to be painful periods, heavy bleeding, PMS, so just feeling really exhausted, nude, and irritable before your period, weight gain, acne, endometriosis, uterine fibroids, and bloating, especially the bloating that tends to get worse during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle or that 10 days or so before your period. I personally started experiencing pretty much all of these symptoms, minus the fibroids, when I was a teenager. And unfortunately, most of them are just so common and have been so normalized in our society and within our medical system that teenage girls are growing up and becoming women who think that having PMS, having heavy periods, having portable period pain, having acne before the recycle, or just feeling awful for half of the month is normal. And if you have been in my world for longer than 30 seconds, you know that none of those things are normal. They are all ways that your body is communicating to you that something is out of balance. There's a deeper issue going on that we really want to pay attention to. So the liver plays a really important role in regulating our hormone levels. It also filters toxins, it filters medications, pollutants that are in our air, in our top water, pesticides that are in our soil and on our food, like glyphosate, heavy metals, as well as toxins that are in our personal care products, so shampoo, lotions, etc., and in our cleaning products. And none of that is meant whatsoever to scare you about all of the things that are in our toxic world. I actually really dislike the fear-mongering that I sometimes see on social media around stuff like this. My goal is to just empower you with the information of here's what is the reality of what is in our environment. And once we know that that is our reality, we can take intentional steps to protect our liver or to reduce our exposure to those toxins. And we'll talk about that later on in the episode. When the liver has more than it can realistically filter, so when its detoxification demands are higher than what is reasonable, or when it doesn't have the nutrients that it needs to do its jobs properly, it can become overwhelmed and detoxification can slow down. So think back to the beginning of the episode when I gave you the analogy of your liver being the busiest employee in a very busy company. So if we have this busy employee, this person is a superstar, you give them a job, they get it done, and they get it done perfectly. What would happen if we just started piling more and more and more jobs or more tasks onto this person? And at the same time, they hadn't slept in a week and they have been living off of Doritos for a couple of days. We're gonna start to see them slacking. They're no longer going to be that superstar employee because they are not able to actually keep up with what's being asked of them. And this is similar to what happens in the body when the liver has too many things to detoxify. And when we are not giving it the nutrients that it really needs, we start to see it slacking. The liver also produces bile. So bile is a fluid that gets stored in your gallbladder and it gets released into your small intestines so that you can digest fats and absorb fat-soluble vitamins, which includes vitamin D and omega-3s. So think about how dish soap, when you're scrubbing your dishes, it breaks down the grease. Bile breaks down fats into smaller parts so that digestive enzymes can digest, digest them. Bile is also a detoxification fluid. So it actually binds and eliminates hormones like estrogen and toxins and helps to push them out of the body. So the liver plays a really important role in digestion. That bile that is produced in the liver emulsifies fats. It also helps to regulate bowel movements. So it helps to move things from north to south. The digestive process is a north to south process. So it helps to move things along the digestive tract. And when the body isn't making enough bile or when it's not flowing well from the gallbladder, or if someone doesn't have a gallbladder, we can start to see irregularities show up with bowel movements. So we can see, and this is going to look different for everybody, but we can see constipation, we can see loose stools, we can see someone going to the bathroom every day, but not having complete bowel movements. So they feel like they could still go, or maybe they're having more of like rabbit pellet type of bowel movements. So again, can look different for everybody, but we can start to see bowel movements become irregular when we are not having proper bile production or bile flow. So when that bile is not being produced sufficiently or flowing, we have this poor fat digestion happening. So we can end up with deficiencies in fat-soluble nutrients like vitamin D. We can see issues with bowel movements popping up. We can also see sticky stools. So also, if you are not new to my world, you know that nothing is TMI around here, but we can see these like sticky stools that stick to the toilet bowl, or they are like a peanut butter texture. They require a lot of wiping. This is often related to poor bile flow. We can see a lot of bloating and gas, and again, those deficiencies in some of those fat-soluble nutrients. Bile is also antimicrobial. So this means that it helps to protect the gut against bugs or microbes that we come in contact with. So things like viruses, bacteria, parasitic infections. So if we have poor bile flow, which would either be stemming from the liver andor the gallbladder, we are going to have a higher likelihood of gut infections, right? So without that good bile production and good bile flow, the digestive system is kind of like a sink with no soap. Okay, so to recap, the liver makes bile, which we use to break down our fats, to absorb nutrients, and to eliminate hormones and other waste products from the body. The liver also plays a huge role in detoxifying hormones like estrogen so that they don't recirculate and build up in our system. Okay, let's talk about the liver thyroid connection now. So your thyroid produces two main hormones, which are T4 and T3, but it mainly makes T4. And T4 is an inactive form of the hormone. So think of this like a physical paycheck. So you have a piece of paper and you have to actually go deposit that paycheck into the bank account. So if we have T4, we have money in our hands, but we can't actually spend that money because it hasn't been deposited yet. T4 has to be converted into T3, which is the active form of thyroid hormone. So T3 is money that's actually in your bank account. And T3 most reflects how you feel. So T3 regulates your metabolism, it helps your body make energy, it regulates your body temperature. So if you're somebody who is always cold or you have popsicles for hands and feet, you just have, you know, cold fingers and cold toes, definitely worth looking at your thyroid. The thyroid plays a really big role in digestion and motility. So when I have clients that are chronically constipated, one of the first things that we do, regardless of what their thyroid looks like on their blood work, is we support their thyroid because it plays a really big role in how fast things are moving through the digestive tract. And it also plays a big role in neurotransmitter balance. So our moods and mental health as well. Now, what does this have to do with the liver? The majority of that T4 to T3 conversion, so inactive hormone to active hormone that we can actually use happens in the liver. And a bit big portion of this also happens in the gut. So if these systems aren't running smoothly, if there's a kink in the hose somewhere, we can definitely struggle to make T3. So if we are struggling with this conversion, it's really common to feel a lot of fatigue, anxiety, to have irregular menstrual cycles, brain fog, weight gain, or difficulty losing weight, low moods, or just feeling a cold all the time. A really common scenario is having these hypothyroid symptoms and not seeing big improvements with medication, because the problem is actually with conversion. And this is not to knock medication. My goal is never to knock medication because they absolutely have a time and a place. But if the issue with the thyroid is that we are not converting those thyroid hormones, the medication, something like synthroid, is probably not going to have a huge impact. So we can have hypothyroidism show up because the thyroid isn't making enough hormones, but it can also happen because those hormones are not being converted into their active form. So we have the physical paycheck, but we don't actually have money in the bank to spend. If someone is diagnosed with hypothyroidism, the standard conventional or mainstream treatment is to supplement those hormones with a medication like Synthroid, which in theory makes perfect sense, but in reality, it definitely falls short. So something that I always say is a downfall of conventional medicine is that it tends to look at our system symptoms in a vacuum. So if someone has an issue with their thyroid, they are typically referred to an endocrinologist. And most of the time, that specialist is going to specifically treat the thyroid, which also in theory makes sense. But the problem is that our bodies are not made up of compartments. Everything is so connected. I actually find it really fascinating. And we can have symptoms show up in one area of the body that are actually being caused by an imbalance in a completely different organ or body system. So the thyroid is a perfect example here. We can absolutely have an issue with the thyroid, but we could also have an issue going on with the liver and the gut, which is why we are not converting or activating those thyroid hormones. So we really have to be looking at the whole picture and looking at all of those connections that are happening within our body. Okay, so some signs that you might be in need of some liver support are going to be low energy. The liver plays a big role in nutrient metabolism, skin issues, so things like acne, eczema, rashes. I always say that skin issues are inflammation or poor detoxification that's going on internally that we can see externally, right? We can see acne or we can see eczema and rashes on the skin. We can't actually see what's going on in our digestive tract or we can't see what's going on with our liver, but we can see it on our skin. So if the liver is struggling to detoxify our hormones, this is going to be one reason why we might see acne popping up. Another symptom or sign would be PMS or period cramps. So if we're not detoxifying that estrogen, we can end up with a more estrogen-dominant picture. And then we're going to see more symptomatic periods, heavy bleeds, painful periods, and PMS. Gut issues like bloating and constipation, poor digestion of fatty meals. So if you tend to feel really sluggish or you get gassy after fatty meals, this probably points to poor digestion of fats, and we're going to need to support the liver and the gallbladder. High cholesterol is another sign. So the liver and bile actually work together to eliminate excess cholesterol from the body. So if the liver is overwhelmed, if it's busy with detoxifying other things, it can definitely struggle to regulate our cholesterol levels. Sensitivity to fragrance is another one. And I am a big proponent of eliminating synthetic fragrances as much as we can because it really is a hormone-disrupting chemical. So we definitely don't want to be having a lot of products with synthetic fragrance. But if you are someone who walks past bath and body works in the mall or the candle section at HomeSends and you get a headache, definitely a sign that your liver needs a little bit of support. And then the last one would be having a lot of symptoms during perimenopause. So during this season of life, we're seeing estrogen on a little bit of a roller coaster. And if the liver is overburdened, if it's overwhelmed, and if it doesn't have the nutrients that it needs, it can really struggle to keep up with those hormone fluctuations. Okay, let's move on now and talk about ways to support your liver. So liver support is something I believe everyone can benefit from. The reality is our livers have higher demands today than ever before. So we're just exposed to a lot more pesticides, to plastics, to chemicals in our water and personal care products, air pollution, medications, processed foods, etc. And again, I want to be really clear the goal is never to fearmonger. I just want you to have the information that you need to really make the best decisions possible for your health. Realistically, even if you eat a clean diet, we're just exposed to a lot more toxins than generations before us. And all of this adds up to a heavier detoxification demand on your busy little liver. So when I'm helping clients support their liver and when I am incorporating these tools for myself, I take a two-pronged approach. So number one, we want to be mindful of our toxin exposure and take reasonable steps without being overwhelmed or stressing to reduce it. And number two, we want to give our liver the nutrients that it needs to work properly. So sometimes people will say, you don't need to support your liver, it detoxifies itself. Well, yes, it does, but it also was not designed to detoxify the amount of things that we're asking it to detoxify. And it also needs nutrients. It needs energy from food, it needs specific nutrients, it needs antioxidants in order to carry out those detoxification processes. So this is really at the core for me how we support the liver. So some of the key nutrients that your liver needs are going to be B vitamins, magnesium, amino acids, which come from protein, vitamin C, fiber, and glutathione. I take a food-first approach. So let's talk about some foods that you can incorporate with these specific nutrients. So fiber is having a little bit of a moment on social media right now, which I'm really happy about. Fiber helps to bind toxins, it binds hormones, and this helps to make sure those toxins and hormones actually leave your body through bowel movements. So incorporating some sources of good fiber into your meals every day is really helpful. So things like avocado, beans, lentils, pumpkin seeds, raspberries, pears, sweet potatoes. There is a guide that is attached, a liver support guide that you can download in the show notes. I forgot to mention that before, but um everything that I'm going to talk about in this section, supporting your liver, including these fiber sources and a few other foods that you can look through and see what sounds good to you, they're all in that guide. So you don't have to worry about writing everything down. Then we have protein. So protein is really helpful, important for healthy liver function. Protein breaks down into amino acids, and your liver depends on these amino acids for both phase one and two liver detoxification. In phase two, the liver uses amino acids to neutralize toxins and makes them water soluble so that they can be safely eliminated from your body. So I really prioritize building my meals around a protein source. So things like beef, chicken, turkey, fish, eggs, freak yogurt, these are all really great sources. If we are focusing on protein and fiber at each of our meals, we're also going to be helping to keep our blood sugar stable. So this is a really key part of hormone imbalances. I do have a couple of episodes about the blood sugar that are worth checking out. But if we are building our meals around protein and fiber, we're going to be showing our liver some love and also keeping our blood sugar stable. Then we have vitamin C. So when most people think of vitamin C, they think of supporting their immune system, especially during the winter, or people will pop vitamin C if they feel a cold coming on, but it's actually a key nutrient for the liver. So vitamin C is an antioxidant and the liver loves antioxidants because it provides protection from oxidative stress and it also helps with inflammation. So incorporating some sources of vitamin C is usually pretty easy. We've got yummy, citrus fruits, oranges, papaya, grapefruit, uh, kiwis, peppers, broccoli, those are all really great sources. I also include an acerilla cherry supplement. So this is a whole food-based supplement, which is different from typical vitamin C supplements. If you look at the label on most vitamin C supplements, they're going to say a scorbic acid. And it's just not the full vitamin C complex that we want. So I go for something that is whole food, meaning it is vitamin C that's extracted from fruits. So Camu Camu supplements are another example. I personally do the acerilla cherry, but it's vitamin C extracted from these high vitamin C fruits. So we're getting the whole complex of vitamin C. I'll link the one that I personally take in the show notes. And I take this all the time, not just in the winter. It can also help with progesterone production. So this is really helpful for you know our periods and minimizing PMS. Then we have B vitamins. So our liver uses B vitamins for both phase one and phase two of liver detoxification. You can get B vitamins from foods like beef, eggs, avocado, leafy greens, wild fish, sweet potatoes, and dairy. You could also take a B complex supplement if you want to. But like I said, I really like to prioritize these foods first. And you might have also noticed a lot of these foods overlap. So we can, you know, build really healthy, balanced meals and incorporate protein, fiber, and nutrients like our B vitamins pretty easily. Okay, the other part to liver support is reducing your toxin exposure. So this really lowers the demands on your liver. And like I said, the goal is never to obsess over every chemical or, you know, feel like you have to live in a bubble. We just want to control what's in our control and take reasonable steps to reduce our exposure to these toxins, which overwork the liver. And they can also really contribute to hormone issues. So I use sprigner as an example. It is a known endocrine disruptor, which means it disrupts the functioning of our hormones. So it's kind of working against us in two ways, even though it smells really amazing. It's disrupting our hormones and it's also burdening our liver, which then is going to struggle to detoxify our hormones. Your liver has to filter chemicals from cleaning products, air fresheners, makeup lotion, deodorant, shampoo, basically everything that we use in our bodies and in our physical space or our homes. And oftentimes these products contain the fragrances, parabens, PIFAs, or forever chemicals that really disrupt our hormones and over time can really just congest the liver by demanding a lot more of its resources and energy. By making swaps to cleaner personal care products, cleaner household cleaners, you can really lower the amount of toxins that your body has to process. So this means your liver doesn't have to work as hard to detoxify those things and it can use its energy more efficiently for things like hormone detoxification, cholesterol regulation, digestion, converting those thyroid hormones, etc. This doesn't have to be perfect. It definitely doesn't have to be overnight. When I started transitioning over to cleaner products, I started making swaps with the products that I was using the most often. So as I finish something up because I don't like to waste things, I would finish it up and then make a switch to a cleaner product. So you can really switch your products over without feeling overwhelmed when you just do it one thing at a time. So for example, if I finished up my laundry soap, I would have a plan already of what I was going to replace it with and then make that switch. You can use there's a couple of different apps out there, but one that I personally really like is called the EWG or the Environmental Working Group. They have, I am fairly sure they have an app. I personally just use their website, but what I like about them is they rate products based on toxicity, essentially. So I believe it is a one to nine scale, and then they have an EWG verified symbol as well, which is like the gold standard according to their evaluation methods. So basically, if you were to type in the shampoo that you use, for example, it's going to give it a number on that scale. And it also breaks down why. So let's say it gives it a bad rating, let's say it gives it a seven, which is not a great rating. You can actually look and see why it got that rating. So it'll highlight maybe its fragrances or whatever ingredients are in there. Um, so I find that really helpful. And then you can also use that app and website to help you with making swaps to other cleaner products. One of my favorite tools for supporting the liver is castor oil packs. If this is a new concept for you, I would actually recommend going on YouTube and just watching a video about how to use a castor oil pack because it'll just be easier to have a visual than me trying to explain it, but I'm going to do my best. So castor oil gets absorbed topically over the liver, so it gets put onto your skin. It's actually been used for centuries. It dates back to Cleopatra days. It is rich in something called racinoleic acid, which has a lot of anti-inflammatory properties. And castor oil, when absorbed through the skin, helps to enhance circulation to the liver. So bringing that blood flow in. And it's a really nice, gentle way to support the liver. You only need two things. You need a bottle of castor oil and a pack or a cotton wrap. You can get one of those on Amazon or Etsy for $15 to $30 and it'll last you. I've had mine for probably four years at this point. It's definitely a little bit greasy and needs to be replaced, but it does last a pretty long time. So, like I said, watch a video online. But basically, you apply the castor oil onto your skin over your liver, and then you wrap the wrap around your abdomen and it will either have velcro at the back or ties at the back. I will say I would recommend one with velcro. I have one with ties, and it tends to get all tangled up, but it still works. So the wrap helps to keep the castor oil from getting onto your clothes and it also increases absorption. So ideally, we want to be wearing this two to four times a week. I typically on average wear mine three times a week. I wear it overnight. It just is what works best for me, but I do have a lot of clients who will just throw it on after dinner if they're, you know, reading a book or watching TV or whatever, and you just want to be wearing it for an hour or two, a couple of times a week. So again, it gets absorbed through your skin and supports lymphatic drainage. It actually promotes bile flow and it supports um gentle detoxification of the liver. It can also help with constipation. It doesn't work like a laxative where I've never had someone say that they are running to the bathroom after using castor oil overnight. But if you do struggle with constipation, I have had some good success with clients using castor oil packs, wearing them overnight. Um, and just with the detoxification support, it can definitely help to get things moving. A quick note on castor oil packs: you don't want to be using those when you are pregnant or breastfeeding. You actually don't want to be doing any type of detoxification when you are pregnant or breastfeeding. If you drink tea, dandelion root tea is very supportive of the liver. It uh stimulates bile production. It's very high in antioxidants that protect the liver cells from oxidative stress and inflammation. So that's a really great one to incorporate if you are a tea drinker. In terms of supplements, so one of my favorite supplements for the liver and also for the immune system is NAC or NAC. NAC helps your body to make glutathione. So glutathione is often referred to as your body's master antioxidant. The liver loves antioxidants, it supports both phases of detoxification. And there's actually some really great research on NAC supplementation and endometriosis. So if this is something that applies to you, I would recommend doing a little Google search search of that. But I have personally noticed a big improvement in my period pain since taking NAC consistently. And it's also my go-to supplement at the first side of a cold because it can be really helpful for respiratory stuff. It helps to break up mucus in the respiratory tract. I always advise people to check with your primary care provider before you start taking supplements because I am not your practitioner. So I don't know your health history. I don't know what medications you are on, etc. So just make sure you run any new supplements by your primary care provider. I incorporate liver support with foods, these lifestyle strategies and supplements into all of my client protocols because the liver plays such a key role in our gut health and in regulating our hormones. And it's just something that doesn't tend to, in my opinion, get the attention that it needs. And typically in the mainstream, anyway, doctors are just not addressing the liver unless there is something flagged on blood work or some other testing. But like I said, we can use feedback from the body to know that, hey, our detoxification pathways are needing a little bit of attention. Okay, that wraps up our episode on the liver. Like I said, go and download the guide that is in the show notes. Everything is summarized for you in there. So that I think will be super helpful. Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you on the next episode.