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Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.
This episode is brought to you by LMNT. And you’ve probably heard me talk about my love of getting enough salt before and how this made a drastic difference in my energy levels. And LMNT is the easiest way that I have found to do this as well as the tastiest. We know that proper hydration leads to better sleep, sharper focus, better energy, and so much more. But hydration isn’t just about drinking water. In fact, only drinking water alone all the time can actually be counterproductive. Because being optimally hydrated, which is a state called urohydration, is about optimizing your body’s fluid ratios. And this depends on many factors, including the intake and excretion of things like salt and electrolytes. Now, electrolytes are charged minerals that conduct electricity to power your nervous system. They also regulate hydration status by balancing fluids inside and outside of our cells. LMNT was created with a science-backed electrolyte ratio of 1,000 milligrams of sodium, 200 milligrams of potassium, and 60 milligrams of magnesium with no sugar. So even though these taste incredible, they don’t have added sugar, and I love my kids consuming them as well.
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Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama Podcast. I’m Katie with wellnessmama.com. And I am back today with Sara Banta to go deep on the topic of sluggish liver, how to know if your liver is struggling, and how to repair it naturally. And we go into everything from what you eat to detoxing, to lifestyle factors that come into play here, to supplements that can help, top things to avoid, and so much more. And you guys seem to really like Sara when she was on before. She is the host of a top 100 health podcast called Accelerated Health TV and Radio as well as the founder of an award-winning supplement company. And I feel like she has a deep understanding of a lot of things related to health. And a lot of it comes from her personal journey that she and her family navigated. She’s healed from Crohn’s, hormonal issues, PCOS, IBS, heavy metal toxicity. Her nine-year-old recovered from leukemia. And she now works with clients on many of these topics we talk about today. She uses cutting-edge protocols and really helps people to find the root cause of what’s going on and heal naturally. She’s a graduate of Stanford with degrees in economics and psychology, as well as a graduate of the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. So without further ado, let’s join Sara. Sara, welcome back. Thanks for being here again.
Sara: I’m so happy to be back. I love you, Katie. I love all of that you are representing and talking about. And there’s more people that need you and, you know, being a mom and trying to fight the good fight out there just like I am. So it’s so nice to connect with you as well.
Katie: Well, thank you. And if you guys missed it, we’ve recorded some other episodes together. I’ll make sure those are linked in the show notes so you can listen to those too. And in fact, our episode today, I would love to go deeper on a topic we touched on in our other episodes because it seemed like a lot of people had specific questions related to that. And that topic is really liver health and especially sluggish liver. And I feel like you have such important perspective on this. But what a lot of people may not realize is that just with our modern lifestyles, there’s a good chance all of us have some sluggishness going on in our liver. And even though we don’t think about the liver that much, unless it becomes something that’s causing acute symptoms, this is a really big deal. So I really wanted us to get to deep dive today on this topic because I feel like this is one of those puzzle pieces of health that can be absolutely life-changing when we figure it out. So to start off broad for the conversation, can you walk us through maybe an overview of why this topic is so important? And some of the bigger factors that come into play.
Sara: So it’s so amazing the way God works, right? He uses me and my family as guinea pigs for me really to have to learn and dive deep into a topic to really understand it so I can talk more thoroughly and more personally for you. Our liver does everything. I say you got to love your liver. It’s the most important organ. And detox used to be this fad that you did in January after New Year’s. And it was like, take your green drink and do that for a couple days, whatever.
Now detoxing is mandatory. We are dealing with a ton of unhealthy chemicals, toxins, preservatives, the metals, antibiotics, hormones, GMOs, all of this stuff from the air we breathe. I just did a podcast on fluoride lowering IQ in your children. So that’s coming into our waters. That is something that we really have no control of unless you’re doing filtering of your water. But we need to drink water, right? And 70% of our food system is now processed foods. So we might be going out and having a low-carb protein bar or protein bar. And it’s filled with these artificial ingredients that our livers don’t know what to do with. Everything has to go through the liver.
So what I’ve noticed with me is that if my liver is backed up, I get nauseous when I’m eating fatty foods. And what? Fat is supposed to be good, right? On a low-carb diet. That’s what we’re all supposed to be doing. Well, a small story with my own daughter. Okay, so the spike protein and what we’ve gone through over the past four years have made things even worse. And it’s really been detrimental to the liver. So the liver is working even harder than it was just four years ago. My daughter’s PMS symptoms were worse. The one doctor wanted to put her on progesterone. The other practitioners are like, no, don’t do any hormones. Why? Because hormones are fat-based. And her liver was so backed up, it wasn’t even going to be able to process the hormone. Who would have thought? Like, just taking a progesterone pill should take care of the hormonal issues. But her liver couldn’t even process it. So you were asking her to do something that wasn’t going to work.
So the reasons that we need to take care of our liver, like I mentioned, the heavy metals, lead, mercury, aluminum. I’ve been tested for heavy metals when I was on my health journey, in the very beginning, I was through the roof on aluminum, mercury, and lead. It was literally off the charts. We’ve got the radiation. Cell phones are not what they used to be. We’ve got our computers and all of these things that we’re being exposed to. All of that is backing up our livers. The dietary toxins, the GMOs, the glyphosate from crops. And we’ll get into a little bit with the sulfur foods. But sulfur foods like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, these onions, garlic, egg yolks, these are healthy foods. But because of glyphosate and what it’s done to our liver’s detoxification pathways, our bodies can’t process these sulfur foods that used to be healthy.
So what do we do? We’re taking in these foods that we think are healthy, and they’re actually backing up our liver. Our liver says, I’m sorry, you can’t ask me to do this. The xenoestrogens, plastics, microplastics. I just did a podcast on microplastics in our foods and in turf. So even the NFL pro football players playing on turf, they’ve got a whole bunch of microplastics in their bodies. This is causing a backed-up liver. And then the processed foods, which is a no-brainer. Anything in a package is processed. Even if it says it’s organic. Even if it says it’s keto or low carb or healthy, it is still processed. And we just don’t know what’s in there. You could have artificial sweeteners, seed oils, GMO grains, the lack of natural fibers, all of this.
So I mentioned the story about my daughter. What did we do for her? We had to do antivirals because she was in natural antivirals, the accelerated silver, acceleridine iodine, to help bring down the pathogenic load. Because the pathogen in her immune system was inhibiting the liver function too. Then we had to put her on a very low-fat diet. Like, she was eating almost vegan, and I’m not a vegan, for just a couple of days. And bison and venison. Very lean, lean wild meat. Even no fish. Fish is high histamine. And what we’re also finding is in the last couple of years, people who have never had allergies or histamine issues, are having histamine issues. And that is causing inflammation, brain fog, itchiness, skin issues, all of this stuff. Your liver isn’t processing these foods.
So we put her on a very low fat diet, because fat is processed and metabolized in the liver. And you can’t ask the liver to do anything if it’s backed up. We need to just give it a rest and cleanse it, right? So we did that and finally her appetite started coming back. Mind you, she’s a pretty petite girl and she had lost seven pounds because she couldn’t eat. So it was serious. This was a very hard summer for a mom because it’s one thing when it’s you, right? The health issues are you. But when it’s your child, you will do anything for your child. It was very hard to watch.
So with that, then we did some liver supporting supplements. I have a liver cleanse that we do, the accelerated liver cleanse. And we started incorporating the supplements, making sure to boost her immune system, using digestive enzymes. You, especially if you’re a woman and you’re, you know, over 40, your enzymes are not right there. That’s why you might be like, I don’t want to eat too much protein because I feel full. Well, that means that your body’s not breaking down the protein. You should want to eat and prioritize that protein. It’s good for your liver, but the right kind of proteins. And we’ll talk about that in a minute.
But all of these toxins in our world has asked our liver and our kidneys to work too hard. So what are the signs? Unexplained weight gain. How many times have you heard, Katie, I don’t understand it. I haven’t changed anything. I’m working out. I’m eating the same foods. I’m clean eating. And I’ve put on 20 pounds. Where did it come from? And the doctor will say, you’re going through menopause. It’s all hormones. This is normal. Get used to it. No, that does not have to be true. Well, yes, menopause makes your liver work harder. And that’s on top of all of these things that we’re talking about. But it is not your destiny. You do not have to be gaining weight in your second half of your life. But you will have unexplained weight gain, sluggishness, nausea. Why do you have nausea? Because your gallbladder and liver are saying, I can’t process that fat. So when you eat the fat, you go, I’m nauseous.
Poor fat and protein metabolism. So what does that look like? Do you have bumps on the back of your arms? Is your stool floating? That means you’re not processing the fat. Low energy, man boobs in your men. Obviously, women don’t see that. But you might have fatty liver. Over 50% of adults have fatty liver disease. And over 25% of our children have fatty liver disease. This is an adult disease and children are getting it because of the processed foods and the glyphosate and the GMOs and the toxins that we’re talking about.
Insulin resistance, that is being seen because your liver is not processing the foods right. And so insulin is going up at the cellular level. Hyaluronic acid levels, skin breakouts, acne, waking up in the middle of the night around three or four, that is a sign that your liver needs some help. And when your liver gets overloaded with all these toxins, it cannot function.
So, what are the wrong healthy foods to eat for your liver? I love this because people say, oh, I’m doing a liver cleanse, I’m on green drinks. Well, spinach, kale, and other leafy greens are thought to be good, right? And they’re loaded with antioxidants and chlorophyll, but they’re full of the oxalates and the sulfur that we’ve talked about. Oxalates can lead to brain fog, hypothyroidism. Oxalates are little toothpicks that love to get stuck in your thyroid and in your joints and cause arthritic pain, cause kidney stones, block the liver detox pathway. I actually have a guest coming on, she’s an influencer. She’s a mom like you and me, Katie. And she is doing all the right things. And she goes, Sara, I don’t understand it. I’ve got kidney stones. I’m so deflated. Well, she’s eating high oxalates. But these are the healthy foods, right? So, look out for these signs.
Now, am I saying that you need to stay away, does everybody need to stay away from these foods? No. If it’s working for you, great. But if it’s not, let’s dive into some of the foods that may be causing your issues. Beets. These foods are known to be good for the liver, right? Well, no. Beets are one of the highest oxalate-containing foods, and they can lead to those symptoms like oxalate poisoning. Garlic. Garlic is sulfur. It is thought to be good for your liver. Turmeric. Same thing. It’s thought to be good for your liver. It has anti-inflammatory properties. But the curcumin in it is the active ingredient, and it actually is full of oxalates.
Avocados. Those are the perfect food, right? Avocados are high histamine. I cannot eat avocados. Now, my husband can eat four avocados a day, no problem, but something to think about. Berries. They’re supposed to be really healthy. They are full of oxalates. So, are you eating berries with your yogurt in the morning and you don’t understand why you’re having symptoms? That could be a problem. Nuts. I always say, you know, when keto really became popular, people were eating tons and tons of nuts. You could eat a whole bag. Well, a whole bag is about 1,500 calories and calories do count, right? And nuts are meant to fatten up the animals before the winter, but also almonds are full of oxalates. So, they’re the one two bam, bang and could be blocking your liver detox pathways.
Too much fat could be overloading your liver. And in general, eating too much fat when your liver is sluggish is too hard on your liver. So, just the first step would be going to a lower fat diet, eating the meats like the wild animal protein, the bison, the venison, and staying away from the fatty fish, like salmon or lamb or the fattier cuts of meat. Now, I love those animal fats, and I love salmon. I had it last night, but my liver’s in a good spot right now. I just did a liver cleanse.
So, these things, it changes in your current state of health, right? How are you right now? It’s not that you’re always going to have to be on a low-fat diet or you always have to stay away from almonds and spinach, but you want to see how are you feeling, what’s your energy, and then taking a look at what you’re taking in.
The sulfur foods. The sulfur foods and medications, glutathione, NAC, these are supposed to be really good for your liver. They’re sulfur-based. So, here you are taking supplements that you think are good for your liver, but they might actually be backing up your liver. And broccoli, kale, cabbage, these are supposed to be really good for your liver, but because of glyphosate in our food system, even if you’re on an all-organic diet, right? We go to restaurants. We eat foods that are out of our control, and that has glyphosate in it, and we are getting exposed, and that is disrupting our detox pathways.
So once again, I just want to mention that if what you’re doing is working for you, then great. It’s not then you want to take a look at these foods, and I have an accelerated food guide on my website, it’s free, it lays out all of these foods to pinpoint what is a good food to eat always, some foods that are okay to eat if you’re feeling great, and foods that no one should ever eat right?
So the foods that you want to focus on organic produce, whole foods. The citrus fruits are really good to help with detoxification, green tea is great, artichoke is great, and that wild animal protein. I love bison and venison. They’re lean. They’re so nutritionally dense. You’re getting the nutrients that you thought you were getting from the vegetables. Our soils are so depleted that they have a problem they don’t provide what you need anymore, so we get more of the nutrients from that wild animal protein. Staying away from the chicken, the poultry, the pork, those are full of linoleic acid, inflammatory fats, and they don’t even get broken down.
So poultry now because of the crowding situations they’re raised in, even if they’re organic, cause these amyloidic proteins. These proteins don’t get broken down in the body. The liver can’t break them apart to use in into amino acids, and our liver needs to do the protein metabolism. So we want to focus on the wild animal proteins that are much more easily assimilated.
When I look at what to do for supplements, I have put together the Accelerated Liver Flush Clease and this will put you through two weeks of supplements to cleanse your liver and then on that last day you actually do a citrus fruit olive oil drink, lay on your right side, and those stones, the liver and gall stones, flush out of your body. You’ll see them in the toilet, and I have just people coming to me saying, I can’t believe what I just saw in the toilet, and you think these are green peas right, and there’s thousands of them, how is your liver functioning with all of the stuff in there just bogging it down.
If you have all that stuff in there your thyroid hormones are going to suffer, right? T4 converts into T3 in the liver so when your liver is sluggish, everything’s sluggish. You have brain fog, you’ve got a slow metabolism. Well the liver flush cleanse will lower the liver enzymes, repair liver cells, detoxify all those toxins that we’re talking about, reduces cholesterol, clears obstructions, boosts your immunity, and it actually can help regenerate the liver and the gallbladder.
So the cleanse is a great way for someone to start and give you a reset. And then there’s some other supplements you can add in to boost the immune system, to boost the fat burning, because most of us women want that fat burning as well. And you don’t need to be on a low-carb diet. We can talk about that later. But it’s more about increasing that ATP, that mitochondrial health, which the liver has a lot to do with.
And the supplements to increase that mitochondrial health, Acceleradine Iodine. Most people are deficient in iodine. 96% of the United States is deficient in iodine. It’s no longer in our salts in a sufficient way, and it’s no longer in our soils. And then you can use supplements like the Accelerated Fast that increases ATP, which cleanses the liver on a daily basis. So it’s kind of that gentle cleanser while healing, letting the gut heal, and intermittent fast in a way that is not stressful to the body. I know a lot of you moms out there, you have your cup of joe, and you take the kids to school, and you don’t really get to eat till 10 or 11 anyways. The Accelerated Fast helps you do so without stressing the bodies. But I want to give you a chance to ask your questions, because I’ve just been motoring on here.
Katie: Well, that was awesome. I feel like we just got a masterclass in how to support the liver and why it’s so important. Can you speak a little bit more, you mentioned spike proteins, and this is not a topic I’ve gone deep on yet on this podcast, but I know a lot of people have questions about this. It makes sense to me that this would be an additional thing our liver now has to take into account. But from what we understand, how are spike proteins essentially creating that extra demand on the body that’s impacting our liver?
Sara: So I want to be very careful because of the topic, but talking about the spike protein is the gift that keeps on giving. What we pinpointed with my daughter was it was the spike protein that caused this wreaking havoc on her hormones that caused then all of these issues. Nausea, low energy. She was sleeping. She was in pain. It wasn’t just pain during her period. Then it became all month long. And she was exposed because of flying and all of that. So, you can be exposed to the spike protein without getting sick, without having the flu symptoms or the typical symptoms, right?
But the spike protein has been shown to disrupt the liver function by interfering with the ACE2 receptor. This can cause symptoms like unexplained weight gain, fluid retention, irregular insulin levels, cognitive fog, fertility issues, increased inflammation, without doing anything different. So people are experiencing more stress, even just from the spike protein. Yes, we’re all stressed. Yes, the global environment is scary. Yes, the politics are scary. All of that stuff. Social media is increasing stress and anxiety. But take away those factors, just the spike protein is increasing the anxiety, the brain fog, the fertility issues, the menopausal symptoms, are getting worse.
So at every step of the way, whether you’re young and trying to get pregnant, whether you’re a teenage girl just having her menstrual cycle, or going through perimenopause or menopausal symptoms, the symptoms are worse. And what I notice when I’ve been exposed, I retain a ton of fluid. And you also might have insulin dysregulation, insulin resistance. Cholesterol levels are going up without changing anything. People are seeing an increase in cholesterol levels.
People are also seeing a deficiency in copper. And that’s why I came out with the Accelerated Copper. So the spike protein and processed foods deplete copper. Guess what else does? Zinc. We all need zinc, but we’ve all been overloading zinc through the pandemic because it boosts the immune system. So our copper levels are low. So I do recommend everybody taking just one tablespoon of the Accelerated Copper a day to support that copper supply in the body. Copper is needed for a thousand different enzymatic reactions. The copper is needed for anemia. Most people think anemia is from a lack of iron, but it’s actually, we’ve got tons of iron in our body. It’s just in all the wrong places. We need the copper to open the door to let the iron get to where it needs to go. It’s important for fat burning.
But the spike protein, so say you ate an apple five years ago and you ate an apple today, you might have an exaggerated insulin response from eating that same apple. Nothing else changes, right? And what happens? Then you go hypoglycemic. What happens when you go hypoglycemic? You have no energy and you need fuel or you reach for another apple or another piece of carbs or sugar to bring up that blood sugar. And that’s not a bad thing. We need to focus on the whole foods, stay away from the processed foods. That’s the biggest issue. But this spike protein is the gift that keeps on giving. It replicates in the body and it’s causing all of these health issues.
Katie: And I know you have tons more resources on this. I’ll also make sure I link to the liver supplements that you talked about and all the resources you have around that. And I know this is a topic we could talk for many hours on, but if you could distill down maybe like three baby step sort of key takeaways or starting points for someone who might be thinking that they are resonating with some of these things you’re talking about and want to address their liver, what would be kind of the first three baby steps you would give them to start?
Sara: Whole foods. Just start eating whole foods. And then go to the accelerated food guide. Look at the foods that are on the approved list. And just by focusing on those foods, you’re going to give your liver a break. Then you can use, I would say, the top two things to do if you want to incorporate supplements is Acceleradine Iodine. It cleanses the liver and the Accelerated Liver Flush Cleanse. It’s easy, guys. My kids have done it. It’s not a big deal. And you’re not hungry. It’s not like a juice cleanse where you’ve got headaches and you’re hangry and you lose a ton of water weight, which doesn’t do you any good. It’s actually cleansing your liver.
Katie: Awesome. Well, like I said, I will put links to all of that in the show notes as well as to your website and to our past episodes together so people can listen to those as well. And you guys stay tuned because Sara will be back to talk about healthy foods that actually make your body store fat and foods that support your body in burning fat. But Sara, for today, this was such a fun conversation. You are an absolute wealth of knowledge and I’m so grateful you were here.
Sara: Thank you.
Katie: And thank you for listening. And I hope you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.
If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.
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