The liver/gallbladder flush refers to the practice of mixing about 1 cup of olive oil with citrus juice or apple juice and drinking it quickly in an attempt to “force” your liver to “fill up with bile and dump it”, “forcing the gall bladder to expel gallstones” which supposedly end up in the toilet after you go to the bathroom. Some flushes also recommend drinking epsom salts as well.
People experience cramping, diarrhea, sweating, nausea, or general sickness and exclaim after they complete the “liver flush” they feel SO much better and have rid themselves of those nasty 100 to 200 gallstones they believe they have in their gallbladder…. all without any proof they have any gallstones in the first place, and the fact that what they see in the toilet is actually just saponified oil (oil coagulated with the citrus/apple juice) because the body cannot digest that much oil at one time and must get rid of it. If you’ve tried the liver flush yourself and checked out the end result, notice how those “gallstones” are green (like your olive oil), shiny (like oil) and melt when slightly warmed (like oil is normally a liquid at room temperature and less viscous when heated)… You might also see some white rock like things which would be if you drank a mixture that included epsom salts. So please spread the word and don’t let your loved ones try this dangerous cleanse!
The gallbladder is very tiny in size and there is no way you could pass a couple of handfuls of gallstones each time in your liver flush. An average gallbladder is only 8 cm or 3 inches in length and 4 cm/1.6inch in diameter when FULLY distended (expanded). So the notion that you can pass 100-200 gallstones from the liver flush is grossly incorrect. If even one gallstone was dislodged it could get stuck in the bile duct and send you to the emergency room in excruciating pain requiring surgery. This is not something you want to risk in itself.
Medical references are below so please explore them, it’s important to be aware of the correct physiology of the body. The gallbladder is vey tiny and does not have room to hold bile and 100’s of gallstones (even if they are small) and the common bile duct is an increasingly smaller tube so if a gallstone ever were to dislodge and get stuck there you would have a gallbladder attack and be in the emergency room getting it surgically removed. The only way you can actually have gallstones removed is if they are dissolved by a chemical solution directed under your doctor, or surgically removed. Dr. X explains why the liver/gall bladder flush does NOT actually work the way you think it does and how doing it is actually DANGEROUS for your health!
A surgeon’s take on the liver flush BASED on the testimonials written on Curezone.com http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/w…
“So what will happen if you do this (besides your producing a lot of unusually stinky and liquid poop)? Well, you will find things in your stool. If you read the many testimonials and look at the disgusting pictures on all the websites touting liver flushes, you will see photos proudly displayed of greenish balls or various other things that sort of look like–well, sort of “stone”-like. Naturally, the liver flushers claim that these are gallstones–without actually proving that’s what they are. Indeed, although it is certainly possible to pass gallstones into the stool and occasionally even find one, it’s highly unlikely to pass such huge numbers of stones (as claimed by testimonials) without previous clinical symptoms of gallbladder disease or without easily detectable stones on ultrasound examination. In some cases, the number of “stones” observed in the stool would have required a gallbladder the size of a football to hold them all! And, given that more always seem to “come out” when additional flushes are done, it would seem to imply that there is an endless supply there to be “dumped” out, a concept that defies plausibility, given that gallstones do not form rapidly enough to replace all the ones supposedly “flushed” out. In any case, check out this testimonial to see what I mean:
‘I just completed my 3rd liver cleanse. Whew! 1st cleanse 250 small stones pea size or less brown and green. 2nd cleanse 460 stones, small stones pea size or less brown and green. 3rd cleanse 260 stones light and dark green. Many marble size and 2 almost as big as golf balls (I saved these!) I highly recommend Andreas Moritz’s book, “The Amazing Liver Cleanse”. I followed to the letter and did colosan and colonics before and after. I read your testimonials and thought I would add my information.’
As a surgeon, I feel obligated to point out that I have never seen a common bile duct (the tube that runs from the liver to the duodenum, through which bile passes) the diameter of a golf ball. The claim that anything so large could “pass” thanks to these flushes strains credibility to the breaking point. This testimonial gets a bit closer to what may be the truth behind liver cleansing:
‘I did a ‘liver cleanse’ or gallbladder flush about 6 nights ago! I’m a 50 year old female in good health. I’m not overweight and have no health problems. I’m active and have been a schoolteacher for 25 years.
I did not have any symptoms of gallstones nor did I have an ultrasound. I just had always been curious to try a gallbladder flush and see if anything came out- as they say most everyone has these gallstones and it’s good to get them OUT.
I did the flush at about 9:30 p.m. And I vomited about 12:30!!! I thought oh hell what an un-pleasant waste of time. BUT the next morning I DID pass some (25?) gelatinous looking things that were greenish – none larger than a small pea. I felt lousey – bloated and not hungry the next day. But since then I’ve felt great!!
I think I vomited because I ate some plain white rice and drank some carrot juice about 5pm. I have been researching various liver/gallbladder cleanses and most say NOT to eat all day and to drink organic apple juice and only that for at least 2 days prior. I took only 4oz of fresh squeezed lemon juice followed by 4 oz of olive oil at about 10 pm. I nearly gagged **YUK** as I was taking it! I will do it again but will follow your directions. I wish I had come across this website BEFORE I did my flush!’
Note that this is an asymptomatic woman with absolutely no evidence of gallbladder or liver disease by clinical history, lacking the classic symptoms of right upper quandrant abdominal pain after a fatty meal (more succinctly known as biliary colic)–or any GI symptoms at all! (Although she certainly did produce some symptoms, didn’t she?) Because of curiosity, she made herself miserable for a couple of days with this “liver flush” and then noticed something “coming out.” These “gelatinous things” were almost certainly not gallstones. There are several varieties of gallstones. Of these, cholesterol stones can be rather soft and easily broken, but I don’t think they could be correctly described as “gelatinous.”
In any case, if these “flushes” actually flushed gallstones in to the GI tract, to be removed via the feces, it would be fairly straightforward to test scientifically, as I’ve pointed out time and time again in other venues. All that’s needed is an ultrasound machine and a willing radiologist, and possibly a biliary surgeon to evaluate symptoms and response. (Whether any IRB that is truly dedicated to human subject protection go for the protocol, however, I can’t guarantee.) Certainly, the ultrasound machine is not an onerous requirement, either. Ultrasound machines have become quite ubiquitous, as the price has fallen dramatically (and the quality has increased dramatically) in recent years. Virtually every OB/GYN practice that does prenatal care has at least one in their office, if not one in each exam room. Many general surgeons have them now, too; as do most emergency rooms. Pretty much any self-respecting breast cancer surgeon has at least one. There are even good portable ultrasound machines that fit into briefcases, and you can even find ultrasound machines in very poor parts of China and India, where, unfortunately, they are used to determine the sex of fetuses, so that parents can abort the females they don’t want. All that’s left is to draft a scientifically valid protocol with the proper controls and then to follow through and document symptoms, physical examination, diagnosis, pre-flush stone load in the gallbladder, and post-flush stone load in the gallbladder rigorously with high quality ultrasound examinations. Not surprisingly, it’s still never been done, as far as I can tell. I search in vain for actual physical evidence to support the claims of liver flushers.”
Reference Material:
Harvard Medical School The Dubious Practice of Detox:http://www.health.harvard.edu/healthb…
QuackWatch The Truth About the Gallbladder and Liver Flush: http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryR…
Mayo Clinic What is a gallbladder cleanse? Is it an effective way to flush out gallstones? http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/gall…
A surgeon’s take on the liver flush BASED on the testimonials written on Curezone.com http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/w…
Suggested textbooks by Dr. X: Concise Colour Medical Dictionary (Oxford Paperback Reference) : http://amzn.to/16cyjEU
Mosby’s Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing & Health Professions, 9ehttp://amzn.to/1gGn6nv
Picture of Gallbladder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gal…
Wikipedia on Gallbladder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallbladder
This is an expansion on Dr. X’s video of how food doesn’t actually enter your body http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPSlFO…Please subscribe to her channel: http://www.youtube.com/drxtvseries
I also wanted to share this video we made back in the spring just to give you an idea of Dr. X’s personal history of illness and being a patient in the medical system while also being a medical student during her struggle for diagnosis of celiac disease. This is why she is so passionate about helping you so you don’t struggle for health and confusion within the natural health and western medical world.
