Chuseok is a holiday enjoyed by sharing delicious food with family, but weight gain due to overeating and drinking can increase the risk of fatty liver disease. Fatty liver is asymptomatic in the early stages and has the potential to develop into cirrhosis and liver cancer. Learn about fatty liver disease, which affects one in three adults in Korea.
The liver is the largest solid organ in our body and plays a wide variety of roles. It manages body energy, is involved in detoxification of toxic substances, bile production, immunity and sterilization, and also plays a role in hormone metabolism. The remaining energy that is not used by our body is stored in the liver cells in the form of neutral fat. Abnormal accumulation of more than 5% of neutral fat in the liver is called ‘fatty liver.’
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease increases, and you cannot feel relieved even if you do not drink too much or are overweight.
Fatty liver can be caused not only by excessive drinking, but also by obesity, diabetes, dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, metabolic symptoms, and malnutrition. Approximately 30% of domestic adults suffer from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and 19% of the non-obese population is also reported to have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Even if you are not overweight, you should get tested if you have diabetes or metabolic syndrome, or if your liver enzyme levels are consistently abnormal.
Professor Kim Young-seok of the Department of Gastroenterology at Soonchunhyang University Bucheon Hospital explained, “As cardiometabolic risk is known to be an important prognostic factor in fatty liver disease, ‘non-alcoholic fatty liver disease’ has recently been called ‘metabolic abnormality-related fatty liver disease.’”
If you ignore fatty liver disease and have no symptoms, there is a possibility of developing serious liver disease.
Fatty liver has no specific symptoms, so early diagnosis is difficult, and even if discovered through health checkups, it is often neglected. However, excessive accumulation of fat in the liver can lead to steatohepatitis, liver fibrosis, cirrhosis, and even liver cancer. According to research, 21-26% of patients with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis develop liver cirrhosis within 8 years, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is known to be the third cause of hepatocellular carcinoma in the United States.
Fatty liver can get better with treatment
The key to treating fatty liver is lifestyle modification. Limiting drinking is most important in alcoholic fatty liver disease as well as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and body weight should be reduced by at least 5%. In non-alcoholic fatty liver disease accompanied by overweight or obesity, a weight loss of more than 5% is required to reduce the amount of fat accumulated in the liver, and a weight loss of more than 7 to 10% is required to improve liver inflammation and fibrosis. Additionally, moderate to high intensity exercise for at least 30 minutes three times a week is essential.
Medication is also helpful. Representative therapeutic drugs include insulin resistance improvers, antioxidants, and lipid lowering agents, and administration of antioxidants such as vitamin E is also helpful. If dyslipidemia is accompanied by statins, statins can be used to prevent cardiovascular disease, and if hypertriglyceridemia is accompanied, omega-3 can be used. Recently, the thyroid hormone receptor beta selective agonist (Resmetirom) was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the first time as a treatment for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis.
Restore your liver with a healthy lifestyle
The liver is the first gateway through which nutrients consumed through food pass. Alcohol, fatty foods, processed foods, poorly prepared and contaminated foods, unproven health foods and folk remedies that harm the liver can be harmful to all liver disease patients. In particular, folk remedies that often involve consuming concentrated products should be avoided as they can place a burden on the liver or act as liver toxicity.
There is a lot of controversy about eating habits that are beneficial to the liver, such as low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets, but reducing total energy intake is more important than the composition ratio of nutrients. In particular, the ‘Mediterranean diet’, which has become popular recently, is known to reduce the amount of fat in the liver and have a significant effect on improving insulin resistance.
Some people often sweat for long periods of time in the sauna to lose weight, but this practice can worsen comorbidities and cause serious cardiovascular disease, so you should refrain from doing so. Instead, you should lose weight through regular eating and exercise.
Professor Kim Young-seok said to patients with fatty liver disease, “As our country’s diet has become westernized, the incidence of fatty liver disease has increased significantly, but there is a tendency to ignore it as ‘a disease that affects all middle-aged people.’” He added, “Fatty liver disease has a good outcome if diagnosed and treated early. “It can be seen, but if not, it often progresses to severe liver disease, so you should not just sit by and manage it consistently,” he said.
2024-10-01 00:22:41