Many people believe that gallstones can be found only in the gallbladder. This is a commonly made yet false assumption. Most gallstones are actually formed in the liver, and comparatively few occur in the gallbladder. You can easily verify this assessment by giving yourself a liver flush. It matters little whether you are a layperson, a medical doctor, a scientist, or someone whose gallbladder was removed and, therefore, is believed to be stone free. The results of the liver flush[1] speak for themselves. No amount of scientific proof or medical explanation can make such a cleanse any more valuable than it already is. Once you see hundreds of green, beige-colored, brown, or black gallstones floating in the toilet bowl during your first liver flush, you will intuitively know that you are on to something extremely important in your life. To satisfy your possibly curious mind, you may decide to take the expelled stones to a laboratory for chemical analysis or ask your doctor what she thinks about all that. Your doctor may either support you in your initiative to heal yourself, tell you this is just ridiculous, or warn you against it. However, what is most significant in this experience is that you have taken active responsibility for your own health, perhaps for the first time in your life.
Not everyone is as fortunate as you are. An estimated 20 percent of the world’s population will develop gallstones in their gallbladder at some stage in their lives; many of them will opt for surgical removal of this important organ. This statistical figure does not account, though, for the many more people who will develop gallstones (or already have them) in their liver. During some thirty years of practicing natural medicine and dealing with thousands of people suffering from all types of chronic diseases, I can attest to the fact that each one of them, without exception, has had considerable quantities of gallstones in his or her liver. Surprisingly, only relatively few of them reported to have had a history of gallstones in their gallbladder. Gallstones in the liver are, as you will understand from reading this book, the main impediment to acquiring and maintaining good health, youthfulness, and vitality. Gallstones in the liver are, indeed, one of the major reasons people become ill and have difficulty recuperating from illness.
The failure to recognize and accept the incidence of gallstone formation in the liver as an extremely common phenomenon may very well be the most unfortunate oversight that has ever been made in the field of medicine, both orthodox and holistic.
Relying so heavily on blood tests for diagnostic purposes, as conventional medicine does, may actually be a great disadvantage with regard to assessing liver health. Most people who have a physical complaint of one kind or another may show to have perfectly normal liver enzyme levels in the blood, despite suffering from liver congestion. Liver congestion is among the leading health problems, yet conventional medicine rarely refers to it, nor do doctors have a reliable way to detect and diagnose such a condition. Liver enzyme levels in the blood become elevated only when there is advanced liver cell destruction, as is the case, for example, in hepatitis or liver inflammation. Liver cells contain large amounts of enzymes. Once a certain number of liver cells are ruptured, their enzymes will start showing up in the blood. When detected through a blood test, this increased count of liver enzymes indicates abnormal liver functions. In such an event, however, the damage has already occurred. It takes many years of chronic liver congestion before liver damage becomes apparent.
Standard clinical tests almost never reveal the occurrence of gallstones in the liver. In fact, most doctors don’t even know they grow there. Only some of the most advanced research universities, such as the prestigious Johns Hopkins University, describe and illustrate these liver stones in their literature or on their web sites. They refer to them as “intrahepatic gallstones.” [2]
By understanding how gallstones in the liver contribute to the occurrence or deterioration of nearly every kind of illness, and by taking the simple steps to remove them, you will put yourself in charge of restoring your own health and vitality, permanently. The implications of applying the liver flush for yourself—or, if you are a health practitioner, for your patients—are immensely rewarding. To have a clean liver equals having a new lease on life.
The liver has direct control over the growth and functioning of every cell in the body. Any kind of malfunction, deficiency, or abnormal growth pattern of the cell is largely due to poor liver performance. Even when it has lost up to 60 percent of its original efficiency, the liver’s extraordinary design and resourcefulness may allow it to perform “properly,” as indicated by normal blood values. As misleading as this may be to the patient and his doctor, the origin of most diseases can easily be traced to the liver. The first chapter of this book is dedicated to this vitally important connection.
All diseases or symptoms of ill health are caused by an obstruction of some sort. For example, a blood capillary that is blocked can no longer deliver vital oxygen and nutrients to a group of cells it is in charge of supplying. To survive, these cells will need to enforce specific survival measures. Of course, many of the afflicted cells will not live through the “famine” and will simply die off. Yet other, more resilient cells will adjust to this adverse situation through the process of cell mutation and learn to utilize trapped metabolic waste products, such as lactic acid, to cover their energy needs. These cells may be compared to a man in the desert who, for lack of water, relies on drinking his own urine in order to live a little longer than he would otherwise. Cell mutation leading to cancer is only the body’s final attempt to help prevent its immediate demise through septic poisoning and a collapsing organ structure. Although common practice, it is far-fetched to call the body’s normal response to the accumulation of toxic waste matter and decomposing cell material a disease. Unfortunately, ignorance of the body’s true nature has caused many to believe that this survival mechanism is an “autoimmune disease.” The word “autoimmune” suggests that the body attempts to attack itself and practically tries to commit suicide. Nothing could be further from the truth. Cancerous tumors result from major congestion in the connective tissues, blood vessel walls, and lymphatic ducts, all of which prevent healthy cells from receiving enough oxygen and other vital nutrients.[3]
Other, more apparent obstructions can disrupt your well-being just as much. A constipated large intestine prevents the body from eliminating the waste products contained in feces. The holding back of fecal matter in the lower parts of the intestinal tract leads to a toxic environment in the colon and, if the situation is not resolved, in the entire body.
Kidney infection and kidney failure may occur in response to the accumulation of calcified stones or deposits of kidney grease, thereby obstructing the flow of urine in the kidneys or urinary bladder. The buildup of such mineral deposits in the urinary system can lead to fluid retention, weight gain, and dozens of disease symptoms.
If acidic, toxic waste matter builds up in the chest and lungs, the body responds with mucus secretions to trap these noxious substances. As a result, the air passages of your lungs become congested, and you literally run out of breath. If your body is already highly toxic and congested, you may even develop a lung infection. Lung infections occur to help destroy and remove any damaged, weak lung cells that otherwise would start rotting or have already been decomposed (pus formation). Lung congestion prevents the natural removal of damaged or weak cells. If the congestion is not cleared up through natural means, or if it increases further through poor dietary habits, the pus will be trapped in the lung tissue. Naturally, destructive bacteria will increasingly populate the scene to assist the body in its desperate effort to clear up this congested area, which comprises decomposing cells and other waste products. Doctors call this survival mechanism “staph infection,” or pneumonia.
Poor hearing and ear infections may result if sticky mucus filled with toxins and/or dead or live bacteria enter the ducts that run from your throat to your ears (Eustachian tubes). Likewise, thickening of the blood caused by highly acid-forming foods or beverages may restrict its flow through the capillaries and arteries, and thereby lead to numerous conditions, ranging from simple skin irritation to arthritis or high blood pressure, even heart attack and stroke.
These or similar obstructions in the body are directly or indirectly linked to restricted liver performance—in particular, to an impasse caused by gallstones in the liver and gallbladder. The presence of chunks of hardened bile and other trapped organic or inorganic substances in these organs greatly interferes with such vital processes as the digestion of food, elimination of waste, and detoxification of harmful substances in the blood. By decongesting the liver bile ducts and the gallbladder, the body’s 60 to 100 trillion cells will be able to “breathe” more oxygen, receive sufficient amounts of nutrients, efficiently eliminate their metabolic waste products, and maintain perfect communication links with the nervous system, endocrine system, and all other parts of the body.
Almost every patient suffering a chronic illness has excessive amounts of gallstones in the liver. A doctor can easily confirm this by having her chronically ill patient do a liver flush. It is apparent that unless a specific liver disease is found, this vital organ is rarely considered a “culprit” for other diseases. The majority of gallstones in the liver consist of the same “harmless” constituents as are found in liquid bile, with cholesterol being the main ingredient. A number of stones consist of fatty acids and other organic material that has ended up in the bile ducts. The fact that the majority of these stones are just congealed clumps of bile or organic matter makes them practically “invisible” to x-rays, ultrasonic technologies, and computerized tomography (CT).
The situation is different with regard to the gallbladder, where up to about 20 percent of all stones can be made up entirely of minerals, predominantly calcium salts and bile pigments. Whereas diagnostic tests can easily detect these hardened, relatively large stones in the gallbladder, they tend to miss the softer, noncalcified stones in the liver. Only when excessive amounts of cholesterol-based stones (85–95 percent cholesterol), or other clumps of fat, block the bile ducts of the liver may an ultrasound test reveal what is generally referred to as “fatty liver.” In such a case, the ultrasound pictures reveal a liver that is almost completely white (instead of black). A fatty liver can gather up to 20,000 stones before it succumbs to suffocation and ceases to function.
If you had a fatty liver and went to the doctor, she would tell you that you had excessive fatty tissue in your liver. It is less likely, though, that she would tell you that you had intrahepatic gallstones (stones obstructing the liver’s bile ducts). As mentioned before, most of the smaller stones in the liver are not detectable through ultrasound or CT scans. Nevertheless, careful analysis of diagnostic images by specialists would show whether some of the smaller bile ducts in the liver were dilated because of obstruction. A dilation of bile ducts caused by larger and denser stones or by clusters of stones may be detected more readily through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). However, unless there is an indication of major liver trouble, doctors rarely check for such intrahepatic stones. Unfortunately, although the liver is one of the most important organs in the body, its disorders are also underdiagnosed all too often.
Even if the early stages of a fatty liver or gallstone formation in the bile ducts were easily recognized and diagnosed, today’s medical facilities offer no treatments to relieve this vital organ of the heavy burden it has to carry.
Most people in the developed world have accumulated hundreds and, in many cases, thousands of hardened bile and fat deposits in the liver. These stones continuously block the liver’s bile ducts, which greatly stresses this vital organ and the rest of the body. In view of the adverse effect these stones have on liver performance as a whole, their composition is quite irrelevant. Whether your doctor or you consider them conventional mineral-based gallstones, fat deposits, or clots of hardened bile, the net result is that they prevent the necessary amounts of bile from reaching the intestines. The important question is how such a simple thing as obstructed bile flow can cause such complex diseases as congestive heart failure, diabetes, and cancer.
Liver bile is a bitter, alkaline fluid of a yellow, brown, or green color. It has multiple functions. Each one of these profoundly influences the health of every organ and system in the body. Apart from assisting with the digestion of fat, calcium, and protein foods, bile is needed to maintain normal fat levels in the blood, remove toxins from the liver, help maintain proper acid/alkaline balance in the intestinal tract, and keep the colon from breeding harmful microbes. To maintain a strong and healthy digestive system and feed body cells the right amount of nutrients, the liver has to produce 1–1.5 quarts of bile per day. Anything less than that is bound to cause problems with the digestion of food, elimination of waste, and the body’s continual detoxification of the blood. Many people produce just about a cupful of bile or less per day. As will be shown in this book, almost all health problems are a direct or indirect consequence of reduced bile availability.
People with chronic illnesses often have several thousand gallstones congesting the bile ducts of the liver. Some stones may have also grown in the gallbladder. By removing these stones from these organs through a series of liver flushes and maintaining a balanced diet and lifestyle, the liver and gallbladder can restore their original efficiency, and most symptoms of discomfort or disease in the body can start subsiding. You may find that any persistent allergies will lessen or disappear. Back pain will dissipate, while energy and well-being will improve. Ridding the liver bile ducts of gallstones is one of the most important and powerful procedures you can apply to improve and regain your health.
In this book, you will learn how to remove painlessly up to several hundred gallstones at a time. The size of the stones ranges from that of a pinhead to a small walnut, and in some rare cases a golf ball. The actual liver flush takes place within a period of less than fourteen hours and can be taken conveniently over a weekend at home. Chapter 1 explains in detail why the presence of gallstones in the bile ducts, both inside and outside the liver, can be considered the greatest health risk and cause of almost every major or minor illness. In Chapter 2, you will be able to identify the signs, marks, and symptoms that indicate the presence of stones in your liver or gallbladder. Other chapters deal with the possible causes of gallstones and what you can do to prevent new ones from occurring. In Chapter 4, you will learn the actual procedure to rid your body of gallstones. Chapter 6, “What Can I Expect from the Liver and Gallbladder Flush?” covers some of the possible health benefits of this profound self-help program. In addition, you will find out what others have to say about their experiences with the liver flush. The frequently asked questions section, Chapter 8, deals with many queries you may have about the flush. To reap the maximum benefit from this procedure, I strongly encourage you to read the entire book before starting with the actual liver flush.
The picture shown on the cover of the book is part of a series of energized oil paintings, known as Ener-Chi Art, that I created to restore the life force energy (Chi) in all the organs and systems of the body. The photographic print of this particular picture helps to restore Chi-flow in the liver and gallbladder. (Unfortunately, digital prints such as the one shown on the book cover do not have this effect; to order photo prints, see Other Books, Products, and Services by the Author.) Viewing this picture for at least thirty seconds and preferably longer—before, during, and after the flush—energizes these two organs and may thereby assist you in the process of cleansing and rejuvenating them. The picture, though, is not necessary to achieve excellent results.
I wish you the greatest success on your journey to achieving a perpetual state of health, happiness, and vitality!