Fatty liver: What exactly is it?

Today I’d like to share some information about fatty liver with you.  A lot of people have a fatty liver; enquiries about this topic are probably the most common questions we receive via email.  It is estimated that 40 percent of Americans have a fatty liver, and this figure jumps to 70 to 100 percent among overweight and obese people. What exactly is a fatty liver?  It means that fat has invaded your liver and just like cancer cells, it is taking up space and reducing the ability of your liver to function properly.  What’s worse, the fat in the liver is the worst kind of fat imaginable.  It is actually rancid fat.  That’s right; the fat inside a fatty liver has gone off.  This is due to the high levels of inflammatory chemicals and free radicals  produced by fat cells in the abdomen, which damage the fat in the liver.  This leaves a person with high levels of products of lipid peroxidation floating around their bloodstream (toxic by-products of rancid fat).  It’s not a pretty picture. The majority of people with a fatty liver don’t realise they have one.  If they are aware of the fact, they usually consider it no big deal.  Most people don’t realise that fatty liver is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes, cancer, heart attacks and strokes.  In fact, people with a fatty liver have a more than eight times greater risk of early cardiac death. In medical speak fatty liver is known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).  Alcohol can cause similar damage to the liver, but the topic of this article is liver damage caused by foods.  There are no medications that can fix a fatty liver, only diet changes and some nutritional supplements can restore the liver back to health. What causes fatty liver? Fatty liver is usually a manifestation of syndrome X (also known as insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome).  If your diet is high in sugar and foods that quickly become sugar after you’ve eaten them (breakfast cereals, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes and any food containing flour), your liver will convert a large portion of these foods into fat.  Some of the fat will be deposited on your thighs, arms, tummy and chin, but a lot of the fat will accumulate inside your liver. Once that process begins, your metabolism really starts to suffer.  You will find it more and more difficult to lose weight, and you will find it harder to stick to a healthy diet.  People with a fatty liver find it much harder to regulate their blood glucose level, therefore they are prone to sugar and carb cravings, hunger and fatigue.  That doesn’t inspire much motivation to stick to a healthy diet and exercise routine! Most processed vegetable oil also contributes to the development of fatty liver.  If you read the labels of most processed foods, you’ll find the words “vegetable oil” in the ingredients list.  The vegetable oil is usually a cheap and nasty oil like soybean, cottonseed, corn, canola, safflower or sunflower seed oil.  These oils are extremely high in omega 6 fats and the delicate fatty acids have been damaged because of the way they are processed.  Therefore this kind of vegetable oil (as well as margarine) worsens the inflammation and free radical damage occurring inside a fatty liver.  Healthy fats to include in your diet instead are extra virgin olive oil, organic coconut oil, macadamia nut oil and butter or ghee made from pasture fed cows. How to reverse a fatty liver The most important thing to do is change what you eat each day.  Sugar, fructose and carbohydrate rich foods, along with processed vegetable oil and margarine are the worst offenders.  Here are our recommendations:  

• Follow the lower carbohydrate, higher protein eating plan in my book Fatty Liver: You Can Reverse It.  This book will teach you to base your diet on protein and vegetables; this means eating predominantly salads and cooked vegetables with seafood, eggs, poultry and meat, along with small amounts of nuts and seeds and fruit.
• Be active most days.  You don’t have to jog or join a gym in order to get enough exercise.  Nearly everyone can do some walking or swimming.  Maybe you could go out dancing, or follow an exercise DVD in the comfort of your home.  Just try to get some movement into your days.  This will reduce the tendency of your liver to convert carbohydrate you eat into fat; you’ll burn it off for energy instead.
• Take a good quality liver tonic.  Improving your diet and lifestyle will certainly help to overcome a fatty liver, but it is a slow process.  A good liver tonic will assist the function of your liver cells and the herb St Mary’s thistle even helps to protect your liver cells from harm.  A good liver tonic like Livatone Plus should help your digestion and reduces some of the symptoms of a fatty liver such as bloating and nausea.
• Take a selenium supplement.  Selenium is important because it helps your liver to produce more of the antioxidant called glutathione peroxidase.  This powerful antioxidant helps to mop up a lot of the damaging free radicals that get produced in a fatty liver.  It is almost impossible to get enough selenium through diet alone because so few foods are a rich source of this mineral.  Selenomune Designer Energy Capules is an excellent source of selenium plus other nutrients to assist energy production.

There is much more information about fatty liver in my book Fatty Liver: You Can Reverse It, plus a great deal of free information on our website here. The above statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease. References: Amarapurkar D, Kamani P, Patel N, et al. Prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: population based study. Ann Hepatol. 2007 Jul-Sep;6(3):161-3. Dunn W, Xu R, Wingard DL, et al. Suspected nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and mortality risk in a population-based cohort study. Am J Gastroenterol. 2008 Sep;103(9):2263-71.