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How many days does it take for your liver to recover?

Healing can begin as early as a few days to weeks after you stop drinking, but if the damage is severe, healing can take several months. In some cases, “if the damage to the liver has been long-term, it may not be reversible,” warns Dr. Stein.

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How quickly the liver can repair itself

Alcohol consumption and liver health is a fine balance – you don’t have to become a teetotaler to stay healthy, but you should be aware of how alcohol affects one of the most important organs of the body and what you can do to keep it healthy.

Alcohol affects men and women differently

The digestion of alcohol is different for men and women because men have a higher concentration of dehydrogenase, an enzyme that breaks down alcohol. “When alcohol, or ethanol, reaches the liver, the cells of the liver have enzymes that help with the digestion and processing of alcohol,” explains Lance Stein, M.D., a transplant hepatologist at Piedmont Transplant. “When alcohol then reaches the blood, that’s when you feel the effects of alcohol.”

How the body processes alcohol

There is no denying alcohol is a toxin to the liver, says Dr. Stein. “As the liver is processing alcohol, it can damage the liver’s enzymes, which can lead to cell death,” he says. “As with any damage to any cell of any organ, there is always a process of healing.”

The liver’s healing process

One of the most incredible facts about the liver is that it is self-healing, just like your skin. For example, if you cut yourself, the wound eventually scabs over as it heals and possibly leaves you with a scar. The same process happens in the liver. As cells die, scar tissue develops. This is known as liver cirrhosis. If excessive alcohol use and scarring continues over time, eventually the liver can become too scarred to function properly. Some alcohol-related liver damage can be reversed if you stop drinking alcohol early enough in the disease process. Healing can begin as early as a few days to weeks after you stop drinking, but if the damage is severe, healing can take several months. In some cases, “if the damage to the liver has been long-term, it may not be reversible,” warns Dr. Stein.

How much alcohol is too much?

“It’s important to know what you’re drinking because when people mix their own drinks, they’re often using more than the recommended amount,” says Dr. Stein. “They think they’re drinking one drink, but they’re actually having two or three.”

One serving of alcohol looks like:

12 ounces of beer

5 to 6 ounces of wine

1.5 to 2 ounces of hard liquor

The bottom line is that moderate alcohol use – no more than two to three drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women – should be acceptable and you should not expect any long-term damage. “People who drink more heavily should be concerned and should seek medical counseling for assessment of whether they need assistance with stopping alcohol use or if they have any damage as a result of long-term alcohol use," says Dr. Stein.

Learn more about liver health.

Need to make an appointment with a Piedmont physician? Save time, book online.

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How long does a gut detox take?

The gut-improving time of people who don't have autoimmune conditions, food sensitivities, or other inflammatory health issues varies, but studies suggest that it's somewhere between two and 12 weeks.

Researchers are now finding what we've been saying for decades in functional medicine: food reactivities like gluten sensitivity are just one end of a larger inflammation spectrum, with autoimmune diseases like celiac disease (CD) on the opposite side. There needs to be significant destruction of your intestinal microvilli to be officially labeled as having celiac disease (CD). Moreover, only about one-third of people with CD have obvious GI symptoms; others experience seemingly unrelated symptoms like anxiety, depression, or skin problems. This leads to only 5 percent2 of celiacs ever being diagnosed. This means that there are around 3 million Americans with celiac disease who have no idea that they have it and gluten sensitivity in up to 6 percent3 of us. For these people, it can take up to4 six months just to bring down the autoimmune-inflammation antibodies of eating a gluten-containing food just one time. This is not even taking into consideration any other food sensitivity or health problem slowing down the gut-nourishing process. Most of my patients are dealing with one or more of these gut health, inflammation, autoimmune issues. I find clinically that while health improvements are seen monthly, it's really around the two-year mark that we see sustained and noticeable changes. If you have more complicated gut health issues, I encourage you to get a proper functional medicine work-up and appropriate labs to get an idea of what you're up against and to make sure you're addressing everything you need to on your unique gut-supporting journey.

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