The liver requires numerous nutrients for phase II detoxification. The liver is versatile, in that it does need all of these nutrients which makes it so humans can detoxify with a wide variety of diets. Still some foods seem especially important to the process of liver detoxification. Originally I had planned to write out the foods that supported each detoxification pathway but that proved difficult to read and digest. So I decided to reverse the presentation. Here are some foods to support various phase II liver detox pathways.
- egg yolks
- sulfation, mercapturation, acetylation
- vegetables of the Allium genus (onions, garlic, leeks, shallots, chives, etc)
- sulfation, mercapturation
- vegetables of the Brassica olercea species (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale)
- sulfation, mercapturation
- avocado
- mercapturation, acetylation
- beets, spinach, wheat bran, wheat germ
- methylation
- seafood
- sulfation, acetylation
- high quality organ and muscle meats
- sulfation, methylation, peptide conjugation, mercapturation, acetylation
- kombucha, jerusalem artichokes
- glucuronidation
Here are the phase II liver detoxification pathways and their nutritional requirements:
- Sulfation
- molybdenum, sulfur compounds (cysteine, methionine, taurine, lipoic acid, alutathione, MSM)
- Methylation
- methyl donors (betaine, choline SAM/SAM-e, DMG, TMG, DMAE, methionine, folic acid (B9), methylcobalamin B12)
- Glucuronidation
- glucoronic acid
- Peptide conjugation / Amino acid conjugation
- glycine, taurine
- Mercapturation / Glutathione conjugation
- B6, Glutathione
- Acetylation
- acetyl-CoA, C, B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin), B5 (pantothenic acid)
- Sulfoxidation
- molybdenum
Further reading: