Your Liver’s Role in Cellular Detox: Get Rid of Zombie Cells

“Zombie cells” may be silently accelerating aging inside your body. Dr. Josh Axe explains how your liver works behind the scenes to remove these dysfunctional cells—and the simple daily habits that can help support this powerful detox process. Thank you to our sponsors! Sunlighten Sauna: https://get.sunlighten.com/axepodcast Manukora Manuka Honey: https://manukora.com/axe Watch The Dr. Josh Axe Show every Monday & Thursday on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@drjoshaxe?sub_confirmation=1 🎧 Early Access! Our listeners enjoy every episode before anyone else! Tune in below and join our exclusive group of listeners → Spotify: https://bit.ly/DrJoshAxeSpotify Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3JDvWcS Order my NEW BOOK, The Biblio Diet → https://bit.ly/4oPEP3t Watch my free training on how to naturally balance your blood sugar and reverse your symptoms → http://DrAxeDiabetesClass.com Discover practical steps you can take today to start healing your thyroid naturally → http://DrAxeThyroidClass.com If you’re ready to start feeling like yourself again and balance your hormones, take my free class → http://DrAxeHormoneClass.com Uncover what’s really going on in your body with advanced biomarker testing for hormones, thyroid, and metabolism— plus a 1-hour consultation with a Senior Health Advisor! → http://mybloodwork.com CONNECT WITH DR. JOSH AXE Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/drjoshaxe/ Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/DrJoshAxe/ TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@thedrjoshaxeshow/ X → https://x.com/drjoshaxe/ LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshaxe Website → http://thehealthinstitute.com Sign up for my newsletter → https://bit.ly/4oE9Jf3 Ask Dr. Axe → http://speakpipe.com/drjoshaxe DISCLAIMER This content is strictly the opinion of Dr. Josh Axe and is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of medical advice or treatment from a personal physician. All viewers of this content are advised to consult their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding specific health questions. Neither Dr. Axe nor the publisher of this content takes responsibility for possible health consequences of any person or persons reading or following the information in this educational content. All viewers of this content, especially those taking prescription or over-the-counter medications, should consult their physicians before beginning any nutrition, supplement or lifestyle program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• 0:02Speaker 00

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• 1:29Josh Axe?

  So many people today are suffering with cellular toxicity. And if you have cellular toxicity, it can be damaging your cell membranes, it can be blocking your cell receptor sites, which is causing hormone imbalance, they can be damaging your mitochondria, so where now your cells aren't functioning properly, which those cells run your organs. And those organs are sick because of what's going on in your cell. And if we can detoxify and heal the cell, now your body can finally heal, it can finally get well. Let's dive in. Welcome to the Dr. Joshak Show.

• 2:16Josh Axe?

  Here's how many of these toxins start to age our cells. Excess toxins drive free radical buildup. When antioxidants can't keep up like glutathione, your cells essentially start to rust from the inside. Or imagine this, you take a bite of an apple. Okay, you know where all the antioxidants are on an apple? On the skin, right? That dark red or green color you're going to see there. When you take a bite of the apple, what immediately starts to happen? It starts to turn brown. Okay, it starts to rust, it starts to decay, it starts to age. That same thing happens when your glutathione reserves run out. Or other types of antioxidants. The polyphenols, the bio, you know, the polyphenols found in things like extra virgin olive oil, the flavonoids found in berries. When those start to run out,

• 3:01Josh Axe?

  well, now, all of a sudden, your cells start to rust and decay. And this damages your DNA, your mitochondria, your cell membranes, leaving you sick, disrupting your hormones and aging you more quickly. You know, one of the things that also happens during this process is something called cellular senescence. Okay, it increases cellular senescence. And here's what that is. There's something called the Hayflick and Moorhead discovery. And this is where they found that cells stopped dividing after about 50 divisions. Okay, so your cells divide, divide, divide over time. You want to do this, by the way, to a degree. And this is a normal conservation process in the body of cell turnover. But what happens is, once those cells multiply 50 times,

• 3:45Josh Axe?

  they sit there and they don't function well anymore. Imagine, you know, once you've used something so many times, it just stops working. Okay, it gets worn out. That's what happens. And these cells are called senescent cells, which now many researchers called zombie cells. They secrete inflammatory chemicals called SASP that basically they secrete poisons that damage other cells in your body. So clearing out these zombie cells is critical for our overall health. And the process in the body that clears out these senescent cells is called autophagy. And this is where you have these things in your cells. They're called lysosomes. Okay, so we talked about the mitochondria. The mitochondria produce energy for the cell. Well, the lysosomes...

• 4:30Josh Axe?

  Are the waste management and recycling company of your cells that go and clear out all of these senescent cells and toxins from your cells? And if your body's not doing that properly as well, you start to have shortened telomeres, which means you're aging more quickly. And the best way to take care of this is to practice fasting, exercise, and consuming very, very specific nutrient-dense foods like fruit and vegetables, omega-3 fatty acids. These are the things that are going to accelerate your autophagy. And so focusing on supporting your cellular health with fruit, with vegetables, with specific supplements, with infrared sauna, with a lot of these different techniques I'm going to get into in a minute, it's critical for your cellular health.

• 5:15Josh Axe?

  And I do want to focus on, not the cell for a moment, but an organ that is responsible for detoxification. And that is your liver, okay? Your liver as an organ is your detox command center. It filters toxins from the blood. It produces bile for fat digestion and hormone metabolism. Your liver is primarily responsible for getting rid of excess estrogen and keeping your estrogen levels balanced, of course, which is critical for men and women. And so we need to do everything we can to keep your liver running smoothly. Now, one of my favorite pioneers for liver detoxification is Dr. Max Gershon. In fact, when my mom was diagnosed with cancer many years ago, one of the primary diets we studied, looked into,

• 6:00Josh Axe?

  and incorporated part of into my mom's cancer protocol was Gershon therapy. And Dr. Max Gershon discovered that healing migraines and TB patients relied heavily on detoxification and nutrients. So here's what he said. He said, "If you're going to heal everything from cancer to migraine headaches, we have to detoxify the liver. We have to focus on reducing toxicity, and we need to focus on getting the body enough nutrients." So he really believed healing was about addressing deficiencies and toxicities. And the theory is that disease can be cured by removing toxins from the body, boosting the immune system, and replacing excess salt in the body. With potassium, there's something called your body's sodium potassium pump,

• 6:44Josh Axe?

  which is another way of detoxifying the cell. And he believed that the liver is the center of the restoration process. And that if the liver is too damaged, then treatment cannot be effective. His daughter, Charlotte, carried the therapy worldwide, spreading the principle that cellular and liver detox is key to healing. You know, I'm thinking about a patient, Donna, I was recently working with in the virtual practice and working with her, who was very sick. And when she came in, we did a combination of things. We did a little bit of blood work. I had did something called a tongue diagnosis and her looking at her patient history. And she, her body was toxic. One way I can tell this in Chinese medicine is if the color of somebody's tongue

• 7:26Josh Axe?

  has an underlying bluish purple color, that's called in Chinese medicine, liver stagnation. It means the liver is really blocked and backed up. Now, from her history as well, she was dealing with chronic constipation. That's another big warning sign. When people hear constipation, they think, oh, that's a digestive or colon issue. Actually, the liver is greatly responsible for as well, moving your bowels. And she had all of these other health problems, everything from brain fog to major hormone imbalances, and she was just really tired and sick. And we also found that she had the MTHFR gene, and so we looked at that. And so I put her on a protocol, which included juicing some vegetables, doing a lot of fruits and vegetables, doing things like spirulina chlorella.

• 8:10Josh Axe?

  We did some antacetyl cystines to support glutathione. And just put her on a really advanced detoxification protocol. After three months, her brain fog lifted, her resilience returned. Actually, she was able to get married, even have a baby, and her health was completely renewed. But she had been to 10 other doctors, both conventional and natural, and they weren't able to figure out what was going on. And her blood work really was pretty normal. That's the thing. The only thing that was slightly off on her was her estradiol levels. But outside of that, everything looked normal. And doctors just wanted to put her on things like birth control and other things, rather than getting to the root of the issue, which is fixing the cell and the liver. And remember, These small choices add up to big shifts in how your body heals and functions.

• 8:55Josh Axe?

  And when you clear the toxic load, you give yourselves the freedom now to regenerate and heal. You're then able to reclaim your energy, restore your focus, and you step back into the life you were created to live. By the way, I want to mention I'm offering a simple at-home blood test that actually tests for the right things. Targeted biomarkers, including hormones, thyroid, and metabolism, plus a full hour with one of my senior health advisors to help you understand your results. So if you are interested in learning more about the blood work and getting testing done, it's very cost-effective to understand the root of your issues, you can go to mybloodwork.com.

• 9:37Josh Axe?

  That's mybloodwork.com and get testing. I want to say thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Shack Show. Where each and every week, we're diving deep into the science and principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually, and take your health and your life to the next level. Also, don't forget to subscribe. It's the number one thing you can do to support the show. And because so many of you are subscribed, it allows us to bring in these amazing, high-profile guests. And also, if you're not subscribed, there's some of the, there are some controversial topics we dive into, like toxicity and cancer and peptides that get shadow banned. So if you're not subscribed on YouTube especially, you're not going to be able to see that. So make sure you subscribe as well, so you get our best of content.

• 10:21Josh Axe?

  Also, thanks so much for liking, commenting, and sharing on these episodes. I'll see you on the next one.