Chinese Wolfberry and Liver Health

Food for Liver Health: Dwarfing Milk Thistle Benefits

Your liver is a 24/7, over-achieving, type-A kind of organ! Its many roles include metabolism, detoxification, glycogen storage, plasma protein synthesis, and bile production for proper digestion. It is so vital to your liver health that if necessary, it is capable of regenerating itself from as little as 25 percent of a remaining liver into a whole new liver again. No other organ has this ability.

Free radicals, naturally occurring food toxins, and environmental poisons all tax liver health to an alarming degree. When you see the term, "hepatoprotective," it is describing something that protects the liver.

Emerging wolfberry research has shown these little berries are almost like liver armor - they are incredibly hepatoprotective!

A nifty, newly discovered wolfberry compound called a cerebrocide has been found to protect the liver from environmental insults. Cerebrosides are a combination of sugar and fat (glycolipids) that in one study protected liver cells from a toxic dry-cleaning chemical better than the well-known liver protectant milk thistle extract.1

Yet another hepatoprotective compound in wolfberry was discovered as recently as 2002: pyrroles. These unusual molecules have a nitrogen atom in their central ring and actually outperformed wolfberry cerebrocides in protecting the liver.2

Both cerebrocides and pyrroles were discovered in Lycium chinense, another wolfberry species and close cousin to Lycium barbarum.

1. Kim SY, et al., "New antihepatotoxic cerebrocide from Lycium chinense fruits," J Nat Prod. 1997 Mar;60(3):274-6
2. Chin YW, et al., "Hepatoprotective pyrrole derivatives of Lycium chinense fruits," Bioorg Med Chem Lett. 2003 Jan 6;13(1):79-81.

This text excerpted from "The NingXia Red™ Advantage: Seven Pillars of Health", Young Living Magazine, Oct-Dec 2005. Reprinted with permission of Young Living Essential Oils, LC, Lehi, UT 84043 U.S.A. No other reprinting without the express written permission of Young Living Essential Oils, LC is allowed.