50 Days to Love Your Liver

I’ve never gone in for New Year’s resolutions.  Why wait for New Year’s Day to start something new?  Carpe Diem!

But the media are often flooded with ideas for self-improvement this time of the year.  And just because I don’t make resolutions at New Years doesn’t mean that I should ignore a good idea.

This brings me to one of the great occupational hazards of being a sommelier.  Oh, yes, there are occupational hazards.  Some are transitory, like headaches from bad wines.  (I never get a headache from good wine, no matter how much I drink.  Quality doesn’t hurt.)  We battle stained teeth or, even worse, acid eating away at our teeth.  And many of us know some unfortunate soul for whom becoming a sommelier was the gateway to alcoholism.

But the most serious occupational hazard is liver damage.  What to do about that?  A year ago, I wrote about MilkThistle and it does seem to work based on my own extensive (but unscientific) personal research. 

But since liver damage is often a slow, long-term process, who really knows whether Milk Thistle really works?  What does?

Enter the British Liver Trust.  They’ve started a campaign, “Love Your Liver”.  Aside from offering free mobile clinics up and down the UK to get your liver tested, they’re also advocating

TAKE 2-3 DAYS IN A ROW OFF ALCOHOL – This will keep your total intake down and gives your liver time to recover. Providing your liver has no lasting damage, it can repair itself very quickly [and] can take as little as 24 hrs to go back to normal. Why not try the Love Your Liver Challenge?

Why not, indeed?  Yes, it's abstinence but it's not total abstinence.  So take a day off.   Sommelier or not, a little moderation and TLC for your liver is a good idea, any day of the year.

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Milk Thistle Is My New Best Friend

As we follow the long and winding road to the end of 2010, our thoughts turn to New Year’s Eve. Actually, since old longtime friends are coming over to celebrate, our thoughts have been on New Year’s Eve for a while.

Thoughts also turn to New Year’s Day…with fresh starts, resolutions, hangovers…not in that order. I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions. Any time is a good time for personal change. Yours, not mine.

But I’m always interested in hangovers, or rather, hangover cures. Wine Out Loud has a great list of cures but experience has taught me that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. But, short of abstinence, can you prevent a hangover?

Moderation is the only sure-fire prevention that I know. But when it’s a celebration, isn’t moderation just a form of abstinence? And moderation becomes ever more challenging as the alcohol levels in wine go higher and higher.

My experience tells me that drinking fine wine significantly reduces the risk of a hangover. Fine wines (which I arbitrarily define as wines worthy of aging) tend to have fewer of those chemical additives that mass-market winemakers rely on for consistency. For the same reason, drinking organic and Biodynamic wines reduces the risk of hangover.

Jancis Robinson recommends Milk Thistle, which contains silymarin. Our homeopathic reference book tells me that Milk Thistle has been used for centuries as a homeopathic treatment for liver disease and for protecting the liver from toxins, including alcohol. Jancis Robinson says she’s been using it for over a decade and swears by its efficacy. Her 2001 article also offers a few other preventions (most anything bitter). Milk Thistle is readily available at many pharmacies. I tried it at Christmas and felt great the next day. It’s on my “to do” list for New Year’s Eve. Here’s to you, Mrs Robinson.

I’ve also found that putting a couple of painkillers next to the bedside table before you start the evening, and downing them when you go to bed, will help get you started early on the road to recovery. But if you’re not sure that you’ll end up in your own bed at the end of the night, you may have more important preventions to worry about.

Just remember that Milk Thistle does not give you a free pass to drink and drive at the end of the evening. So enjoy but play safe.  

All the best in 2011!

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