While most people recognize that the liver is a pretty important organ when it comes to general survival, the liver is less familiar as a major factor in weight loss. Because poor liver function can result in a significant amount of fluid retention, and because it plays a critical role in the function of EVERY hormone responsible for burning fat in the body, the liver is often a primary interfering factor for losing weight.

Due to chronic abuse of the liver through things like heavy alcohol use, using medications and drugs, and bad eating habits, especially an overconsumption of fats and heavy animal-based proteins, the liver can become overloaded and irritation can result. This results in an inflammatory response in the abdominal cavity, which results in an accumulation of fluid (called ascites). As the retained fluids collect in the stomach area, the stomach will often begin to protrude outward, producing the appearance that is sometimes called a "beer belly". In women, the problem can get bad enough that the protruding belly makes them look pregnant when they are not. For people with this water weight deposition, weight loss can be frustrating because exercise will not "burn it off" - because it's not fat. Since natural weight loss approaches fail to get results in these situations, some people resort to diet drugs, which may work at first, but ultimately harm the liver even more and create even more abdominal water retention.

Ironically, with water weight gain associated with liver dysfunction, some diet plans and weight loss products can actually make the situation worse and lead to even more fluid retention. The Atkin's diet, because it is so high in protein and fat, tends to be hard on the liver and will often lead to even more retaining of fluid. Certain products sold to help with weight loss may have ingredients that further stress and irritate the liver and result in even more water retention in the long-run.

In addition to the water retention issue, good liver function is necessary for the proper production and/or activation of the hormones that stimulate fat burning. For instance, the liver is needed to convert the inactive form of thyroid hormone (T4) to the active form (T3). When the liver is overworked and cannot do the hormone conversions efficiently, the body cannot burn fat efficiently, no matter how much exercise you may do or what other natural weight loss steps you take.

In addition to activating fat-burning hormones as with thyroid hormone, the liver produces insulin-like growth factor (IGF), which is another fat-burning hormone. IGF controls blood sugar during the relatively long-period that you go without eating during sleep. When you are asleep at night, your blood sugar levels fall and the liver generates IGF to cause the fat tissues to burn fat to boost blood sugar. Again, if liver function is not as good as it should be, this hormone is not produced efficiently and you don't burn as much fat. The other thing that occurs is that your blood sugar will go lower than it should and you wake up in the morning feeling very fatigued and irritable.

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