How Poor Liver Function Affects Your Sebaceous Glands

Do you suffer from acne? Do you always have oily skin, particularly around your nose and forehead? Do you have very greasy hair no matter how often you wash it? There is an explanation for that!

Our liver is an incredible machine! It performs 500-600 different functions PER SECOND. Its main function is to detoxify harmful toxins from the body via your still. It also is our main digestive organ as it secretes pancreatic enzymes and bile to our pancreas and gallbladder every time we eat a meal.

Our bodies are exposed to hundreds of thousand of endogenous and exogenous toxins daily, and on top of that we are very stressed, eat bad foods, don’t drink enough water have poor sleep, etc. All these factors greatly strain our liver and overtime, it is not able to function optimally. 

As our liver begins to slow down its functions, it starts to eliminate toxins at a much slower rate and it no longer secretes a large enough amount of bile and other enzymes to help digest our foods, mainly fats. As this happens over time, the fats that we are consuming plus our hormones (they are composed of lipids) are not being broken down by the body.  Toxins are stored in fat so when the body is not capable of breaking down the fat and eliminating it through our stool, it tries to eliminate it a different way. 

When the body cannot breakdown fats, it will either store them (hello weight gain and cellulite) or try to push them our through the skin. This is where acne, oily skin and hair come from! Our skin has glands called sebaceous glands that secrete sebum (oily matter) into the hair follicle and skin to help keep our skin nourished and soft. Your body will dump the poorly absorbed and excess fats through these glands so that it can exit the body.  Acne is formed when the sebaceous glands get infected (inflammation) and blood and puss as your body tries to clear out the bacteria and toxins present their.

The more fat your body tries to push out, the more clogged your sebaceous glands will become and the more acne you will have. Because hormones are also fat-based, when you have excess hormones that your liver can’t eliminate, your body will try pushing that out through the skin also leading to hormonal acne (mainly jawline and temples). The rest of the fat will tried to be dumped out through your hair follicles which leads to overly greasy hair. 

I know what you might be thinking! You’re thinking that since you happen to have very dry skin, that your fat digestion might be great and that you need to eat MORE fats to have en excess to be released through your skin to help moisturize. While yes, that may be the case for you, most people who have poor fat digestion and absorption just have their fat dumped out through their stools (this creates very sticky stool) or stored as body fat. So you can have dry skin and hair and it can almost definitely mean you have poor liver function. Depending on the way your body works is how your body will handle poor fat digestion. 

In order to make sure you’re emulsifying the fats your consume and the excess hormones in your body, you need to have a healthy functioning liver and digestive system. Make sure you immediately cut out all processed, hydrogenated and inflammatory fats/oils from your diet as they are the hardest to breakdown in the body and will cause the most inflammation in the skin and digestive system. The second think is to take digestive enzymes and ox bile 20 minutes before your each meal to give your body some support. Thirdly, you want to drink some lemon juice or apple cider vinegar after your meal to trigger the release of bile from the gallbladder and then you want to take herbs or homeopathics to support your liver. 

Once your liver is functioning well and your body is capable of eliminating the excess fats through your digestive system rather than the skin, your acne will clear and your oily skin will balance out and become drier. If you have dry skin, the opposite will happen and your skin will become more moisturized! 

Love your liver and it will thank you 😉