As a part of our liver cleanse protocol, we spent a lot of time researching for the best liver detox tea remedies and recipes. We looked into historical traditional use, modern research data, reviews, benefits and side effects.
The liver detox tea evidence based recipe below offers a great natural way to support your liver and gallbladder health. We focused on safe and effective ingredients you can easily find at your local store.
We hope this recipe and review will help you in your journey for a safe effective and happy cleanse.
Liver Detox Tea Ingredients : Summary Of Evidence
Quick links: Recipe, side effects, benefits.
What Is The Best Tea To Detox The Liver?
Most liver detox tea products you get at the store, include a combination of common liver herbs, especially the top liver cleansing herbs: milk thistle seed, chanca piedra, borotutu bark, greater celandine, chicory root, dandelion root, turmeric, peppermint, and others.
Are these liver detox tea a good and safe option to cleanse your liver? Not exactly. Not always.
Liver Detox Tea Side Effects
Safety wise, there are reports of side effects and issues. The medical literature report cases of patients that had liver toxicity after they consumed liver detox teas. Moreover, many liver detox teas contain ingredients that have very little research on their effectiveness for liver cleansing, or safety in general. Other contain problematic ingredients that can cause stress to the liver.
Other reviews mention side effects such as digestive issues, diarrhea, excess gas, bloating and headaches. While a few practitioners explain these as temporary liver detox symptoms, we do not believe these discomforts are necessary. In our experience, you do not need to feel bad before you feel good.
The first key takeaway: if you consider to use a liver cleanse tea, get it from a trusted safe source, ideally that is specialized in cleansing.
Liver Detox Tea Benefits
As a part of our liver cleanse protocol, we tested a large number of liver herbs. The results have not being consistent. This is very common when it comes to natural herbs, since there are many factors that can impact the potency of the herbs. The origin of the herbs, their freshness, harvesting time, and many other factors can all impact the concentration of the active ingredients and effectiveness of the herbs.
In our testing, we didn’t see a big difference in the cleanse results after we used liver detox tea products. Liver herb extracts usually work better. The only exception was when we used fresh organic liver herbs. We literally took these from the ground and made a tea a day after. Fresh liver herbs, however, are usually not available to most people.
Liver Detox Tea Recipe
The liver detox tea recipe below offers a great natural way to support your liver and gallbladder health. We focused on safe and effective ingredients you can easily find at your local store.
Considering that most liver cleanse drinks are cold, many people prefer to also drink something hot during the liver cleanse, especially in the winter or as a healthy alternative to other hot beverages.
Liver Detox Tea
Ingredients
- 1 cup spring water
- 1/2 lemon
- 2 inches ginger root
- dash ground cloves optional
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon * optional
- 1 tbsp raw local honey or a few drops of stevia optional
Instructions
- Peel the ginger root and cut to thin slices.
- Boil the ginger in water for 5 minutes.
- Add the cinnamon * and cloves (optional). See comments below.
- Reduce the heat, cover and allow the to simmer for additional 5-10 minutes. The longer, the stronger the taste.
- Strain the tea into your tea cup.
- Squeeze the juice of ½ organic lemon, add into the tea.
- Add the raw honey or stevia to taste (optional).
Notes
Nutrition
Liver Detox Tea : Top Tips From Our Members
- Cinnamon & Clove:
Both choices show in studies potential as a natural way to support liver health, with some concerns about cinnamon (See evidence below).
Taste wise, both add a very strong taste to the tea. Some people love the way they taste, others may not.
For this reason, if you usually don’t like the way cinnamon or clove taste, do not add them to the recipe. If you like to try, always start with very small serving size, and adjust based on the way the tea tastes. - Stevia vs. Honey:
Both options have evidence (see below) on safety and even effectiveness to promote liver health. We prefer stevia over honey, as it doesn’t have any calories or impact on blood sugar levels. If you choose honey, we recommend to prefer organic raw and local.
Liver Detox Tea : Summary Of Evidence
Ginger
Ginger has a long history of use as a natural remedy for digestive issues such as constipation, bloating, indigestion, nausea and vomiting. When you cleanse your liver, you want to make sure your digestion system works well so it can effectively eliminate any toxins released from the liver during the cleanse.
Specifically to liver, the research data suggests that ginger can improve liver enzymes profile and other nonalcoholic fatty liver disease characteristics [1].
Lemon
There are many reasons to include lemon in your liver cleanse tea, juice or in fact in any detox recipe you make. The first reason, is that lemon juice can enhance the body’s overall ability to detox and cleanse. Naturally, safely and effectively.
As for the liver detox benefits of lemon, the research suggests that lemon juice can regulate elevated levels of serum ALT and AST liver enzymes as well as triacylglycerol and lipid peroxidation in the liver [2].
Clove
If you like the way cloves taste, you may want to include cloves in the liver detox tea. The research data suggests that Eugenol, one of clove’s main active ingredients, has a strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, which can help to decrease oxidative stress and protect the liver against injury. [3].
Another reason to add clove to the liver detox tea, is that clove is well known for its antibacterial and antifungal properties, which may be helpful during the cleanse. [4].
Cinnamon : Good or Bad For The Liver?
Taste wise, cinnamon compliments very well the flavor of clove. But is cinnamon a good option for the liver cleanse? The evidence in this case, is not conclusive.
Benefits
On one hand, cinnamon comes with a very long history of traditional use that is also supported by modern research. The data suggests that cinnamon may have therapeutic benefits on lipid profile, liver enzymes, insulin resistance in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease patients. One study suggests that taking 1500 mg cinnamon daily may help to improve nonalcoholic fatty liver characteristics. [5].
Concerns
There are however, some concerns regarding potential liver toxicity of cinnamon. These concerns are linked to cinnamon’s active ingredient, coumarin. And here’s the challenge. The recommended safe daily intake of cinnamon is 0.1 mg/kg/day. For a 200 pounds male of female, this means 9 mg of cinnamon a day. Obviously, this means that most people who consume cinnamon easily exceed this amount.
A study that further tested this concern in the traditional Japanese herbal medicine (Kampo medicine), found no cases of abnormal liver function in patients that exceeded the recommended daily intake. [6].
The bottom line
Cinnamon is a very popular natural spice, that can add a lot of flavor to your recipes, along with health benefits.
If you like the way it tastes, you can continue to use cinnamon. You may want however, to take breaks just to be on a safe side. Another option for you to consider, is ceylon cinnamon. Also known as “true cinnamon”, this type of cinnamon has much less coumarin content compared to the cassia cinnamon type.
If you have concerns about your liver health, or do not like the taste of cinnamon, we do not see a reason to start adding it to your recipes. There are better and safer ways to detox and cleanse your liver.
At least until the medical community will conduct more studies on the question of cinnamon – liver toxicity.
Stevia
Stevia is a natural sweetener that is made from the leaves of the plant species Stevia rebaudiana. The biggest benefit of stevia over honey, is that it has zero calories with very minimal impact of blood sugar levels.
For this reason, we usually prefer to use stevia over other sweeteners including honey. If you like the way stevia taste, stevia may be a very good option to sweeten your recipes.
As for the liver benefits of stevia, the research data suggest that stevia can prevent oxidative stress in the liver and may be useful for acute and chronic liver diseases. [7].
On that note, there is definitely a need for more studies to confirm such a strong claim. The evidence does suggest, however, the potential of stevia as a safe option.
A few comments about stevia:
- When you use stevia, little goes a long way. Stevia is just very sweet. Just add a few drops and see how the tea tastes.
- Always look for 100% pure stevia on the label. Many stevia products also contain other ingredients.
- Some stevia products have a bitter aftertaste. It is best to choose a stevia product that removes the components that cause the bitter taste when they extract the stevia. You can usually see this on the label.
Honey
Not everyone likes stevia. We see it very clearly in our testing. If you are not happy with the way stevia taste, honey may offer a very good natural option to sweeten the liver detox tea.
While most people think of honey as a natural sweetener, Honey does have a long history of traditional use as medicine for many centuries [8].
Research data suggests that honey can increase the nitric oxide levels in the liver tissues, which can protect the liver against damage. [9].
The data also suggests that honey may also have a protective effect for diabetes, respiratory, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, and nervous systems issues [10].
On that note, a quick reminder. 1 tablespoon of honey has 17 grams of sugars. Something to consider if this is a concern to you.
- Adrenal Fatigue Supplements: The 5 Basics Everyone Should Know About - October 12, 2020
- Sugar Cleanse: Naturally Detox Sugar From Your Body in 14-21 Days - June 22, 2020
- Rope Worm Parasite: Health Concern or Pseudoscience Term? - May 7, 2020
Delicious!
I forgot to mention, this works well also chilled.
Hi,
I have been making this tea for a couple of months with great results! More than just a liver cleanser.
I am wondering if I can add Tumeric?
How many times a day and how many days do you do this? Do you eat meals as well?
Hi Michelle
You can drink this tea every day to naturally support your liver 1-3 times a day, or to support the liver detox protocol that also contains liver cleansing foods, herbs and supplements.
See: https://cleansejoy.com/how-to-detox-your-liver/
I love the flavor! I have added turmeric to mine, for additional health benefits.