Do you have a fatty liver?
Most people have no idea if they have it!
Fatty liver is a dangerous and misunderstood disease. The tricky thing is that you may have it and not even know it. 100 million Americans are estimated to have fatty liver. If you’re like most people, you probably don’t think about your liver all that much. But if you’re one of the millions of Americans with fatty liver disease, it’s time to start paying attention. This article will discuss what fatty liver is, how to know if you have it, and how to fix it.
What is Fatty Liver?
First, it’s essential to understand what the liver does. The liver is located in the right upper part of the abdomen. It has at least 500 vital functions in the body. All the blood leaving the stomach and intestines passes through the liver.
Anything is eaten or consumed, whether it’s food, alcohol, medicine, or toxins, gets filtered by the liver.
It also:
- Gets rid of toxins.
- Knows which nutrients to store and when to release them.
- Produces bile which helps digestion
- Regulates amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins
In a nutshell, the liver is important! The cells in the liver do a lot of work – and we really need them to stay alive.
Fatty liver is when liver cells are replaced with fat cells. That means that the liver doesn’t work well because it doesn’t have enough cells to do its job. So, now the liver becomes less efficient, it is under-functioning.
A fatty liver can:
- Balance less
- Detoxify less
- Stores less of the things we need
- Leave us more prone to being sick
Fatty liver happens slowly. It’s similar to the experience of gaining weight. You don’t gain all the weight at once. It takes time.
Signs of Fatty Liver
Most symptoms of fatty liver disease don’t occur until the progression of the disease has worsened. Fatty liver can damage your liver for years or even decades without producing symptoms. As the condition worsens, the most common symptoms include:
- Excessive weight gain or difficulty losing weight, even if you’re not obese
- Bloating, especially after eating
- Fatigue and general malaise
- Nausea and vomiting
- Itching skin (especially around the navel)
- Yellowing of the skin and eyes (jaundice)
- Swelling of the legs, ankles, or feet
- Abdominal pain or tenderness
- Dark urine and pale stools
Remember that these symptoms happen in the later stages. In the beginning, you’ll feel nothing.
How Do You Know If You Have Fatty Liver?
So, if I don’t feel anything, how will I know that I have it? When you get a blood test and have elevated liver enzymes, this can signify that your liver is injured. But many people with fatty liver have normal liver enzymes.
To get an accurate diagnosis, you need an image Ultrasound or CT to get a picture of the liver.
How Do You Get Fatty Liver?
There are two kinds of fatty liver:
- Alcoholic Liver Disease – When you are a heavy drinker.
- Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver – This happens to people who are not necessarily heavy drinkers but consume tons of carbs and sugar.
It’s not actually from eating fats!
This horrible food is called foie gras, which is the fatty liver of a duck or a goose. Some people consider this food a delicacy. Do you know how they get it? They force feed the animal lots and lots of sugar, corn, and starch. It gets the bird’s liver so fatty, which apparently is a delicacy for some people. It’s a horrible practice!
But it’s the same for humans! If you keep eating large volumes of carbs, sugar, and starches, your liver will become fatty.
So if you’re gorging on sugar and starch, you’re essentially doing the same thing with your own liver. Sugar switches on fat production in your liver, creating an internal process called lipogenesis, which is your body’s normal response to sugar.
Fructose, the most detrimental sugar that heads directly to your liver, actually ramps up lipogenesis. That explains why sugar, especially fructose, becomes the main cause of liver disease.
Other causes of fatty liver include :
- Excessive alcohol intake
- Being overweight, obese, or inactive
- Genetics and family history
This is not just an adult issue. We have young people with fatty livers from years of soda and junk.
What’s So Bad About Having a Fatty Liver?
Besides the liver not being able to do its job, a fatty liver also causes inflammation. This triggers insulin resistance and pre-diabetes. It will also start to deposit fats in your liver and organs, including your belly called visceral fat. Visceral fat is linked to heart attacks, diabetes, and more.
A tatty liver actually messes with your ability to curb your appetite and causes you to get heavier. To feel full, you need something called leptin. People with fatty livers have leptin resistance, which means they never feel full.
And of course, they keep eating and getting more fatty liver, which becomes a vicious cycle.
How to Treat Fatty Liver
The good news is that fatty liver is reversible. If you catch it early enough, you can often treat it alone with diet and lifestyle changes. However, if you ignore the signs or wait too long to seek treatment, you may need medication or even surgery.
Here’s how to start taking care of your liver.
Stop the Junk
Avoid all processed foods and white, processed flour and significantly reduce starch. Get rid of high fructose corn syrup. They increase your blood sugar levels, stressing your liver and resulting in high triglycerides, which promote a fatty liver.
Eat Liver-Repairing Superfoods
Regularly eat foods from the cruciferous family – like broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts, as well as leafy veggies like kale, collards, cabbage, arugula, and watercress. They help produce glutathione which helps heal the liver.
Improve Your Metabolism
Daily exercise improves insulin resistance and reduces fatty liver. Besides your daily cardio workout, weight training can also help.
Eat More Protein
Protein at every meal becomes key to balancing blood sugar and insulin, cutting cravings, and providing your liver the raw materials it needs to detoxify optimally.
Eat Good Fats
Remember, fats don’t cause fatty liver; carbs do. SO eliminate the carbs and add the fats like coconut oil and avocado, omega 3. Fats are good only with a low-carb diet. It doesn’t count if you are dipping your bread in olive oil.
Take Supplements
The right supplements can help bring your body back into balance while it heals. This includes:
- NAC
- Glutathione
- Milk thistle
- Methylated b vitamin
PLEASE remember do not use supplements without the diet. You may overtax your liver.
And of course, if you haven’t yet, take a break from alcohol. It’s one of the first things you can do to help your liver repair.
Get Help From Experts
You can always ask for help from our team if you believe that you have fatty liver symptoms but don’t know what the next step is. Or, if you just want to make sure you stay healthy as possible, our team is here to guide you with our Knew method.
