We Tried the Daily Dose For Your Liver Supplement Drinks — Here’s Our Review

The older I get, the more pills I have to swallow every morning just to function. The pill case I take on vacation could double as a musical instrument. So when Dose came up with supplement drinks to take the place of yet another giant capsule to boost my health, I was eager to give them a try. While I’ve been testing Dose for Your Liver, I also spoke to a board-certified internal medicine doctor and a registered dietitian to get an objective perspective about whether something this tasty can also be as beneficial as the brand claims.

On the surface, Dose shots may seem like a prepackaged version of what you might get at a fancy juice bar, and they do taste pretty similar. The difference is that in Dose, there’s a much higher concentration of the active ingredients and zero sugar, so you don't have to worry that your sugar intake is canceling out the good stuff.

A balanced diet, plenty of sleep, and regular exercise are ideally all I need to have a healthy liver, experts tell me. But life gets in the way of ideals, doesn’t it? I’m always sabotaging myself with celebratory drinks, missed workouts, family feasts, midnight worry sessions, and more, making me think I could use a nutritional assist to stay on track and feel my best. Below, I’ll get into the details of how Dose for Your Liver — along with Doses for Cholesterol, Skin, and Immunity — might help you, as well as why, after this test, I’ll be renewing my monthly subscription to get these healthy shots delivered right to my door.

While my Dose bottles were provided by the brand for the purpose of this article, it’s pretty easy and relatively inexpensive to get them on your own at DoseDaily.co. A three-pack of 16-ounce bottles costs $90, which comes to $3.75 per 2-ounce shot. But if you subscribe to delivery every 24 days, you’ll save 40 percent, paying just $2.25 per shot. The bottles don’t need to be refrigerated until opened (it will last 30 days after that), and your first order comes with a cute metal shot glass for more convenient measuring. According to the brand, you can take 2 ounces once a day for three to four days a week to “combat everyday stressors” from food, medications, alcohol, and unhealthy air. For long-term liver health, it recommends one shot daily; and for “liver damage support,” you can take two shots a day.

The liver has some very important jobs: It filters harmful substances from your blood, releases bile to aid in digestion, stores and releases glucose to regulate blood sugar, and stores and releases other nutrients to regulate your energy levels. “Your liver is constantly filtering your blood, breaking down medications, hormones, and environmental toxins, and packaging everything so your body can safely get rid of it,” explains Ehsan Ali, MD, a board-certified physician in internal medicine, also known as the Beverly Hills Concierge Doctor. (Everyday Health consulted Dr. Ali for information about the liver and various supplements, but he has no association with Dose, and his participation in this article is not meant to be an endorsement.)

If you suspect that you’re experiencing an acute or chronic liver disease, you should seek medical care and advice immediately. But if you’re just seeking ways to help your body along, taking supplements like Dose can give you a boost. The drink contains concentrated ingredients that have clinically proven benefits to the liver, and it’s so much easier to swallow on a regular basis than most pills.

“There isn’t a magic reset button or some deep-clean cycle [for the liver],” Dr. Ali says. “It’s more about giving the liver what it needs to keep doing the work it already does exceptionally well.”

While Colorado-based nutritionist Brittany Scanniello, RD, reiterates that “the best way to support liver function is through good habits: a balanced diet, regular exercise, maintaining a healthy weight, limiting alcohol, and staying hydrated,” she does see the value in the ingredients of Dose for Your Liver. (Scanniello is also not associated with Dose, and her participation here does not indicate an endorsement.) She and Dr. Ali helped me review each of them.

• Milk Thistle: “Milk thistle, commonly known as silymarin in the supplement space, is one of the better-studied herbal agents for supporting liver health, specifically in the presence of liver injury such as fatty liver, hepatitis, or cirrhosis,” Scaniello says, cautioning that most evidence is for people with compromised livers. Dr. Ali agrees, adding, “It has antioxidant properties and may help protect liver cells from damage.”

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   Milk thistle also has anti-inflammatory properties, and studies show it can help regulate glucose levels in patients with type 2 diabetes.

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• Curcumin: While traditional medicine has long used turmeric for its healthful properties, Dose has extracted curcumin molecules from it in such a way that the brand claims that 2 ounces of the drink has the equivalent of 17 cold-pressed turmeric shots. “Curcumin is another strong contender; it’s a powerful anti-inflammatory, and chronic inflammation plays a big role in many liver issues,” Dr. Ali says.

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• Dandelion Root: We may call it a weed, but compounds in its roots have been shown to have anti-diabetic properties.

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   Adds Dr. Ali, “Dandelion has been used traditionally for liver and gallbladder health, but the modern science is less clear.”
• Ginger: Dr. Ali says that ginger is primarily beneficial as an aid to digestion, and we know it’s great for nausea. There’s also some evidence that ginger can help with diabetes, cardiovascular health, the immune system, weight loss, and more.

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A shot of Dose for Your Liver really does taste like something I’d get at a juice bar. The juice contains orange juice extract along with monk fruit extract for sweetness, while the turmeric and ginger add just a little bit of zing without being at all spicy. I’m grateful that it doesn’t have any artificial sweeteners, which I really have no tolerance for. Though I liked the taste when I tried it unrefrigerated right after it arrived, it’s even better after being refrigerated. I’ve found myself looking forward to drinking this once a day.

How does it make me feel? I do have healthy liver function, according to my most recent physical, and it’s only been a week since I started drinking Dose, so I don’t know what the long-term effects of it will be yet. What I can say is that the first time I tried Dose was after indulging in some beer with friends. That night, instead of the insomnia that alcohol normally gives me, I slept straight through the night. And I’ve been sleeping well every night since, despite work and holiday stress. For someone like me who’s in the first stages of perimenopause, this is huge.

Going back to my previous calculations, if you get a subscription to Dose, you’ll be paying just $2.20 per shot. I haven’t seen prices like that at a juice bar since the ‘90s. Add to that the fact that each shot contains a far more concentrated amount of beneficial ingredients than a regular juice, and this is a fantastic deal. While I haven’t tested my own liver enzymes since trying Dose, the brand’s own clinical studies show some impressive results. After eight weeks, participants who took Dose for Liver in a double blind study saw an average of 50 percent reduction in their AST levels and 52 percent reduction in their ALT levels — those are enzymes measured to show liver health. In a second study, after three months of taking Dose, 88 percent saw a positive impact in AST and ALT levels, and 94 percent saw a positive impact in ALP levels (another measure of liver health).

If you have reason to worry about your own liver health, you should absolutely seek the advice of a health-care provider before doing anything else. Dose is not meant to treat, cure, or prevent disease. But this is one way you can take a positive step toward boosting your liver health without medication, so I think it’s worth a try.