Dr Eric Berg says there are clues in your feet you could have liver problems

The liver is one of the body’s vital organs, responsible for more than 500 important functions.

These include removing waste products and toxins, as well as converting food into energy.

Therefore, any damage to the liver can be dangerous. It can also cause lasting symptoms in areas of the body you might not expect.

According to Dr Eric Berg, the feet can be affected by liver issues. In a YouTube video he shared the signs of liver damage to spot in your feet.

Speaking to his more than 11 million subscribers he said: “You can get a lot of clues by looking at certain parts of the body, especially the foot, to be able to understand what’s going on on the inside.”

Red and brown spots

You might have seen this symptom in people with diabetes, Dr Berg said.

“But if someone has cirrhosis or hepatitis or even a severe fatty liver, a lot of times the circulation is so bad in the lower part of their body you’ll see these little red and like kind of a rust colour brown, maybe sometimes scaly little dots or pigments that look a little bit like a bruising.”

He explained: “So the liver has a lot to do with the clotting factors, vitamin K and when you lose the liver function you can have a lot of things like bruising and discoloured spots in different parts of your body.”

You might also notice that the lower leg is very swollen and shiny and there’s no hair growth anymore. The skin can become very thin – almost “paper thin”.

Spider veins

These most commonly appear in the lower ankle but could occur anywhere in the body.

Dr Berg said: “So this is a certain situation where the liver is no longer able to to regulate oestrogen so we have this unregulated excessive amount of oestrogen that floats around the body and oestrogen tends to vasodilate and kind of create this vascular pooling effect of your blood.

“The problem with having this extra oestrogen is that extra oestrogen can then damage the liver and create things like even a fatty liver and problems with your bile duct which could lead to um gallstones.”

Dry cracked heels

Dry, cracked heels are usually caused by a very severe omega-3 deficiency.

“The liver makes bile and bile helps you break down and absorb fat soluble vitamins as well as fat soluble nutrients like the omega-3 fatty acids,” Dr Berg said.

“But with poor liver function we don’t produce the amount of bile that we need to help to extract the omega-3 fatty acids. It can also be a vitamin B3 deficiency which could lead to pellagra.”

Itchy feet

According to Dr Berg itchy feet “usually” exist because that bile that’s produced by the liver is very very thickened.

The bile then backs up into the liver and then backs into the blood.

“From the blood it backs into the tissues and that can show up as itching,” he said.

“I know some people that have this unbearable itching [in their] feet [that] drives them crazy all night long but they’re not making the connection. The problem is probably not in the foot, it’s in the liver.”

He added: “But it can also be a fungus growing on the foot. People with liver problems have more fungal infections not just on the foot but on the toenail as well.”

Toenail issues

There are five issues that can occur with the toenails with liver damage: dystrophic nails, onychomycosis, leukonychia, onychorrhexis and a club nail.

Dystrophic nails are nails that are deformed and very thick. Dr Berg said: “It’s cracking, it’s distorted, it’s yellow. Sometimes it breaks off from the nail bed.

“It can be very uncomfortable with just a little bit of uh force and a person kind of stubs her toe and then the nail just starts breaking off.”

It can also cause toenail fungus that’s called onychomycosis.

“The nail bed just starts to break down because there’s this fungus invading and there’s a bit of a yellow colouring but that fungus is living off of your protein and the collagen in your nail,” he said.

Leukonychia is identified by white lines that go across the nail or little dots.

Whereas onychorrhexis appears as vertical ridges that go up and down.

Dr Berg said: “Both of those situations can be a liver problem also having a club nail could be a liver problem and in that situation it’s kind of an upside down spoon so you have this kind of a squarish very large kind of a bulbous nail that’s occurring on your foot or it could be in the hand.”

Other signs in the feet

He also warned that people with liver problems might have bad smelling feet that smell like ammonia.

You could also feel your feet are hotter or colder than they usually are.