Fatty liver is a common liver condition that occurs in over one-third of adults in the U.S. and with similar alarming frequency elsewhere in Western societies with poor diets. In some cases, the condition is mild and causes no noticeable symptoms, but in other cases it can lead to permanent liver damage or liver failure.
Fatty liver is frequently associated with alcoholic liver disease, but it may also have non-alcoholic causes.
You do NOT want a fatty liver. You need to get me eBook on liver health: “Love Your Liver”. It’s coupled with a similar super eBook about kidney health (kidney disease is arguably the 4th leading cause of death). More on that at this page: Liver and Kidney Health
Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD)
Contrary to belief, alcohol is NOT the main cause of liver failure (only 6%); NAFLD is (over 50%)!
Moreover it has now emerged that fatty liver will likely trigger an even bigger killer: diabetes. Diabetes, I have often said, is really “speeded up aging”; that’s pretty much the effect is has on your body.
In a study to be published next month (Apr. 2011), researchers found people with fatty liver disease were significantly more likely to develop the disease within five years than those with healthy livers. Fatty liver, as diagnosed by ultrasound, strongly predicts the development of type 2 diabetes regardless of insulin concentration.
Researchers say fatty liver often occurs along with other risk factors for diabetes, such as obesity and insulin resistance, which has made it difficult to determine whether the condition itself is a marker for diabetes risk.
But in this study, the researchers found that even among those with similar insulin concentrations, those with fatty liver were still 200% more likely to develop type 2 diabetes.
This was a large study carried out in Korea andpublished in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Over the space of five years (2003- 2008), researchers looked at the relationship between fatty liver and diabetes risk in 11,091 adults.
At the start of the study, 27% had fatty liver, as diagnosed by ultrasound. Nearly two-thirds of those with fatty liver were also overweight or obese compared with 19% of those without fatty liver.
In addition, almost half of those with fatty liver had seriously raised insulin levels, a marker of insulin resistance (pre-diabetes), compared with 17% of those without fatty liver.
During the follow-up period, less than 1% of those without fatty liver developed type 2 diabetes compared with 4% of those with fatty liver.
[SOURCE: Sung, K. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, April 2011. Pre-publication]
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