Sunday, January 8, 2017

My theory that different parts of the liver do different things

Tonight I typed this into google:

does the liver have different parts

Just to see what would come up.

I have a theory that different parts of the liver do different things for the body, and therefore, if a certain part of your liver is damaged, it could affect you in a different way, than if a different part was damaged.

I know there are many people and many doctors out there, that would say this is nonsense, the whole liver is the same.

Just like there are many different doctors who said scar tissue isn't reversible... but they were wrong about that.

And there are many people (including dentists) who would tell you that it's not true that there is such a thing as a tooth meridian - meaning, that different teeth affect different parts of the body.

But I've seen a ton of evidence that shows, if you have an infected root canal, it can cause diseases - including cancer, in different parts of the body. DEPENDING on which tooth is affected. If you haven't heard this one yet, please look at this page to understand the tooth meridian and how it works.

But there is such a thing, and not all people - even people who seem like they should be "in the know" - know what they're talking about, when they say something isn't possible.

Anyway, when I did the search, I found a discussion where most people said no, the liver is all the same, all the different parts are the same.

You know what most people do? They just repeat the thing they've heard over and over, without actually testing it to see if it's true or not! Even doctors do this!

As I was scrolling through the responses, seeing different people saying no, no, no, the whole liver is the same, I was laughing to myself, thinking, most people would think I'm nuts. You're not supposed to doubt doctors and people who are in med school. And yet... that's what I do. I don't hear the word "No" very well. It's like, it just goes right over my head, and I go, NEXT! Sorry, that's not the answer I was looking for!

Maybe I'm a bit like the dog in the Gary Larson Cartoon, who just hears Blah Blah Blah Ginger. Only my brain hears,

Blah blah blah next!
Blah blah blah next!
Until I find somebody who's done the research I'm looking for!

THANKFULLY, there was ONE PERSON on this discussion page, that said what I was looking for. He said this:

A couple of my collegues,eduard jonas and henrik nilsson, have developed a technique for functional mri with liverspecific contrast medium, they habe clearly showed varying functions in different regions of the liver. This is very obvious with cirrhosis where typically segm 1 to 4 hypertrophy and 5-8 shrink.

I've pasted the discussion below, with the comments highlighted. I found it on this page.

So, why do I care about all of this?

Because I can't help wondering if there is a certain part of Matt's liver that was damaged, so it is causing the MS.

I found it kind of odd that Matt was losing his two front teeth (the ones next to them seemed fine), yet that is not what happened to my husband... he was losing his side teeth.

I couldn't help thinking... if there is such a thing as the tooth meridian... and it's true that every vertebrae in our spinal cord connects to a different part of the body... couldn't it be possible that there could be a liver meridian, too? If you look at a picture of the liver, you'll see many different veins, going into different parts of the liver. It's the largest organ in the body, by weight, and it performs over 500 different functions. Wouldn't it make sense that somehow, different parts could do slightly different things?

I really want to commend Jacob Freedman, Eduard Jonas and Henrik Nilsson for bringing this to light. I hope their research might eventually be able to somehow help people with MS.

Akalpita Arvindekar

Shivaji University, Kolhapur

Do different lobes of the liver have different functions in terms of biochemical pathways or storage?

We have been working on gluconeogenesis in the liver. We were finding varying results for pyruvate uptake studies. Then we realized that some of the lobes show pyruvate uptake while other do not, hence the variation. Why should this happen?

Topics

Apr 18, 2015

1 / 0

All Answers (6)

Kumaravelu Jagavelu · Central Drug Research Institute

Hello There,

Morphologically all liver lobes contain major portion of hepatocytes, followed by endothelial cells, stellate cells and kupher cells. Till date all lobes function similarly without any disparity. This situation prevails even in case of hepatic regeneration, suggesting all lobes have similar function. The question is why are different lobes present, may be this is because, liver being the largest organ has to fit in the small area, hence evolutionarily there are lobes to accommodate in the small area.

May be further research is required to clarify your point.

Apr 21, 2015
Giuseppe Garcea · University of Leicester

are you using isolated perfused liver? in which case your findings could be explained by perfusion defects within the lobes. this is a common problem when perfusing animal livers.

Apr 21, 2015
Laurence Blendis · Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center

The answer is no. The evidence comes from small liver resections of right or left lobes, after which overall functions are left intact. But differences can be shown by the differences in delivery of substrates from the right and left portal vein s

Apr 21, 2015
Akalpita Arvindekar · Shivaji University, Kolhapur

Thanks. I was not aware that there would be differences in delivery of substrates from right and left portal vein. Given your vast experience in working on the liver can I contact you for advice in case we come across any problems?

Thanks also to Giuseppe and Kumaravelu, however I cannot digest that liver is divided into lobes to fit into the small space. Could it be possible that lobular structure promotes better blood supply?

Apr 22, 2015
Jacob Freedman · Karolinska Institutet

Very interesting. A couple of my collegues,eduard jonas and henrik nilsson, have developed a technique for functional mri with liverspecific contrast medium, they habe clearly showed varying functions in different regions of the liver. This is very obvious with cirrhosis where typically segm 1 to 4 hypertrophy and 5-8 shrink.

Apr 23, 2015
Henrik Nilsson · Karolinska Institutet
Hi! Very interesting topics, and I would love to hear more about it. Which parts of the liver were hyper- and hypofunctioning?

There are several imaging-based studies on liver function suggesting that the function of the right and left lobes are not the same. I attach two of them.
Jacobsson_Different concentrations...radiopharmaceuticals in the two.pdf

Nilsson_The inhomogeneous distribution of liver function.pdf
Apr 25, 2015

Can you help by adding an answer?

Sunday, January 1, 2017

A study I found, about remission of MS, after a Liver Transplant

Please note that personally I absolutely would never get a liver transplant, or suggest that anyone else get one, unless alternative therapies like my husband used, have been exhausted. If you want to know why I am against liver transplants... I wrote some posts about this topic. My husband was able to reverse cirrhosis thanks to alternative therapies, and I believe most people can greatly improve their liver health with these same therapies. True, this is my opinion, but my VERY STRONG OPINION.

One More Reason I Don't Think a Transplant is The Answer

A Story I've Been Meaning To Tell - And Why I Would Never Want My Husband to Get a Transplant

10 Things Your Doctor Won't Tell You About Transplants

Liver Transplantation: The Pros and Cons of Donating Your Liver / Accepting a Donation

But that aside, I am making this page because I can't help but believe there could be a strong connection between liver health and MS.

2004 Nov;31(4):539-41.

Remission of multiple sclerosis post-liver transplantation.

Yoshida EM¹, Devonshire VA, Prout AJ.

Author information

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

The effect of liver transplantation on pre-existing multiple sclerosis (MS) has never been reported. We report the three year post-transplant neurological outcome of a patient with MS.

CASE REPORT:

A Caucasian woman with MS received an urgent liver transplant for fulminant liver failure at the age of 59. Her Extended Disability Scale Score (EDSS) pretransplant was 5.0 and clinically she had cerebellar and brainstem dysfunction. Post-transplant immunosuppression consisted of tacrolimus, mycophenolate mofetil and tapering corticosteroids that were discontinued after 1.5 years. Post-transplant her EDSS decreased to 2.0 and after three years she is clinically asymptomatic with only very mild dysarthria on neurologic examination. Long-term maintenance immunosuppression consists of low dose tacrolimus.

CONCLUSIONS:

Combination immunosuppression with tacrolimus may have a beneficial effect on MS although an effect of donor allograft itself can not be excluded.

PMID:: 15595263

[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Why I created this blog - my theories about Multiple Sclerosis / MS and the Liver

For the last 3 years, I've done a TON of research on the liver. This is because my husband was diagnosed with Stage 4 Cirrhosis, aka END STAGE liver disease. He made some drastic changes to his diet, and a Fibroscan showed that he no longer has cirrhosis. We had heard over and over again that it is impossible to reverse cirrhosis, but I have seen with my own eyes that this is not true.

The reason I am starting this blog is because part of the reason I am such an avid researcher, and so into alternative therapies, is because my ex boyfriend, whom I'll call Matt, was diagnosed with MS, at about the age of 30 (over 20 years ago). And I am starting to wonder if it could be possible that his MS could have something to do with his liver!

The liver has over 500 functions, and I got to see first hand, that when it starts to fail, everything else in the body can start to fail! The liver is like the trash man, that is constantly working in the background and we typically can't even feel it... so it's easy not to realize how important it is... UNTIL it stops working, and then it becomes glaringly apparent, just how important it is!!!

Tonight I remembered how, the last time I saw Matt, who was newly engaged and walking with a cane, his front teeth were turning brown, and looking like they were on their way to falling out. I remember thinking, what's going on with Matt's teeth? I knew this issue must be related to MS somehow, but had no idea why. I knew Matt was the type to brush his teeth well, so it was obviously something beyond his control.

Well, my husband lost a few teeth because of cirrhosis. This is because the liver is responsible for processing and utilizing calcium... but when the liver becomes impaired, you start drastically losing calcium. I have spoken with many people who have lost a few teeth because of cirrhosis, and I know of a few people who've lost ALL their teeth because of it!

Just out of curiosity, I did some googling to see if there were any cases of people who'd been able to reverse their MS symptoms, after a liver transplant. And sure enough, I found THIS STUDY and THIS DISCUSSION about it.

I feel like it's only right that I start this blog, because Matt is really the person who got me to do all this research. When I first met him (at work), I was 25 and he was 30. At that time, I was all about modern medicine. If I had an illness, I'd want to treat it with the most drastic, hardcore, expensive option known to the medical industry. I just assumed that if something costs a lot of money, it's GOT to be the best option. But I was SO WRONG! And I am so grateful to Matt for reversing my opinion on this. He took me to see Dr. Andrew Weil speak about his book, Spontaneous Healing, and it truly changed my life.

I feel like I really owe Matt, for being such a good influence on me, because when my husband was diagnosed with cirrhosis, I was absolutely determined to find a natural way to reverse it (if it weren't for Matt's influence... my husband might have gotten a transplant). And I discovered that there are a LOT of things that can be done, to heal the liver, and heal the body! I became so obsessed with alternative therapies, I even created a blog about how my husband was healing his cirrhosis, to share what I'd found, with other people.

It really broke my heart to see Matt's health suffering because of MS. When I first met him, he went to the gym and was really fit and healthy (though he did drink a lot of beer in his lifetime). I was really excited to have met someone I could go running with. There was a day where we were house-sitting for a friend, and I talked him into going running with me in that neighborhood. After about a mile, he told me he needed to stop. He said his leg just couldn't keep up. He felt like he'd been losing feeling in one of his legs, gradually, over the course of the last year, and couldn't explain it.

It was heartbreaking to watch him struggle with these MS symptoms over the next four years while we were dating. It was just getting worse and worse. We eventually broke up but still kept in touch for a long time. Now he is remarried and I don't even know his current phone number or email address. There was a party hosted by a mutual friend, today, and I wanted to go and talk to him, but wasn't able to make it.

It's funny because I have a blog post with a video where I talk about how just about every guy I've dated in the last 2 decades was a heavy drinker (by the way, he is NOT one of the exes I mentioned in the video on that page). Though I would never have classified Matt as an alcoholic (he really took good care of his health), I do remember that shortly after we started dating, I asked him how many beers he consumed in a week, and he very nonchalantly answered something like "30." I was like, WHAT?!?? Dude, that is like, borderline alcoholic! And he really could not see what the big deal was. I don't know if this is a habit he picked up in college or what, but to him, it was totally normal to go out after work, hang with friends, and spend a few hours at a bar, and then by the time you go home, you've had 4 or 5 beers. I had always wondered if all that alcohol could have had something to do with his MS, or at least, I wondered if it made it worse.

Since I've been learning just how much the liver affects the entire body, I can't help but believe that improving liver health could help a person with MS. Please know that this is just a recent theory of mine, and I thought it was worth starting this blog. I may do occasional searches on this topic, in the future, and a blog is a good way to save information I've found, as well as share it with other people.

I'd always wondered if Matt somehow got his cirrhosis from toxins in his water supply, back at home. He grew up in a farmtown that was notorious for being like, the slaughterhouse capital of the world. You could smell the stench of cow feces in the entire town, there was no escaping it. And it's a known fact that meat production is absolutely horrible for the water supply and our environment. So I always wondered if something could have leaked into the water supply, and he had some kind of toxic buildup that somehow got stuck in his body and he was unable to eliminate it. Maybe his liver was damaged, to the point where it couldn't fight off the toxin that was causing the problem?

I don't think it's any small coincidence that I've seen some incredible testimonials by people with MS, who have used the 3 main same therapies my husband used, and got very noticeable results. These 3 things are PEMF, Super high quality vitamins (with over 30 things known to be beneficial for the liver), and the detox water my husband drinks. I know there are many, many other things that are beneficial for people with MS (Matt used to order bees in the mail and sting himself with them!) but in my opinion, they are 3 of the most powerful things I've seen, that have helped my husband to heal from cirrhosis.

If you're interested in checking out more of my other blog, you can find more information at www.HealingLiverCirrhosis.com. That is my main blog that I spend most of my time working on (or talking with people who contact me) but I plan to add more articles and research as it relates to MS, as I find it in the future.

Ellie