Metabolism and Health
Here’s How to Defeat Fatty Liver Disease with 3 Lifestyle Choices.
Considering our waste products and blood circulate through the liver, we must take care of it to support our health and get leaner.
Why Fatty Liver Disease Matters
The liver is our second largest organ with critical functions. As it filters all types of waste products and blood, the liver works as a busy organ.
Moreover, the liver metabolizes sugar and stores it as glycogen, which the body can readily access for energy.
“All the blood leaving the stomach and intestines passes through the liver. The liver processes this blood and breaks down balances, and creates the nutrients and also metabolizes drugs into forms that are easier to use for the rest of the body or that are nontoxic”, as documented in this paper.
Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is a widespread condition globally. According to UCLA Health, the prevalence of fatty liver disease ranges from 10 to 46% in the United States.
The report points out that “Patients are typically diagnosed with NAFLD in their 40s or later, but given the size of the obesity epidemic, we know there are many younger patients who have still not been screened and likely have fatty liver disease.”
According to a paper in the World Journal of Gastroenterol:
“NAFLD is a pandemic disease worldwide, which has been paralleling the ongoing epidemics of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. The prevalence of NAFLD approaches 25%-30% in the Europe and United States general populations, but this figure surges to 80%-90% in selected cohorts of the dysmetabolic individual.”
Another article in the World Journal of Gastroenterology points out that “Patients with NAFLD have an increased risk of premature cardiovascular as well as of liver-related mortality. Of concern, up to 50% of cases, NAFLD-HCC may occur in the absence of cirrhosis, a circumstance which will often worsen the outcome.”
A Brief Introduction to Fatty Liver Disease
As the liver plays a significant cleansing role in maintaining our health, the entire body might face severe health conditions if it gets sick.
The medical literature documents two types of fatty liver disease: alcoholic and non-alcoholic. Alcoholic fatty liver disease (AFLD) is caused by excessive alcohol consumption. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) or non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is believed to cause by excess calories that the body cannot utilize.
According to numerous papers in medical literature, NAFLD might not show noticeable symptoms.
However, some papers mention fatigue, itchy skin, abdominal pain, swelling of the abdominal area and legs, confusion, yellow skin, enlargement of breasts in men, and overall body weakness as common symptoms. These symptoms also adversely affect our mental health.
Most of the studies I reviewed indicated that obesity, high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and increased triglycerides in the bloodstream could be the root causes of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. In addition, most review papers highlight excessive calories turning into fat cells.
From my understanding, the risk factors and causes of NAFLD are closely related to the metabolic syndrome that I introduced in this recent article titled: Defeat Metabolic Syndrome and Slim Down Waistline with Three Tips.
Living with obesity tops the list for fatty liver and metabolic syndrome. Therefore, we need to defeat obesity to reduce the risks of metabolic diseases. I use the verb “defeat” in the titles of my stories purposefully as I vision patients as winners.
Without going into scientific details, I introduce three practical approaches that might reduce the risk factors and contribute to preventing fatty liver disease naturally.
These suggestions are not health advice but improvement of lifestyle choices. Patients with NAFLD risk need to consult qualified healthcare professionals to reduce risks and obtain timely treatment.
1 — Reduce Blood Sugar by Cutting Excess Calories
The body needs glucose in the bloodstream. However, it considers excessive sugar toxic and therefore always keeps it in an acceptable range. The pancreas releases insulin hormones that distribute the glucose to cells to eliminate excess glucose.
Our cells need glucose for energy. However, they are tightly regulated. Like the bloodstream, cells don’t accept excessive glucose by stopping responding to insulin.
As mentioned in my previous articles, this situation leads to insulin resistance. When cells shut down to receive glucose, as a last resort, the insulin sends the glucose to fat stores by turning glucose to fat molecules.
Here are three practical tips to reduce excess blood sugar.
1 — Consider eating nutrient-dense foods.
2 — Consider reducing refined carbs.
3 — Consider increasing healthy fats for satiety and energy.
You might find the details in these stories titled Three Tips to Eliminate Insulin Resistance and Shrink Waistline and Five Tips to Melt Visceral Fat and Have a Defined Belly.
We need to understand the sugar paradox to prevent and defeat metabolic disorders. I explained it in the attached article.
2 — Increase Movement, Before and After Main Meals
Exercise is essential for many health reasons. However, we can also use exercise to reduce excess calories.
Various exercise regimes include cardio, resistance workouts, calisthenics, and high-intensity interval training.
Due to our metabolism, fitness level, genetic makeup, and other factors, we need an exercise regime that meets our goals.
One of the easiest and most natural workouts is walking for people who can walk. It is relatively low impact and can significantly reduce calories, especially after main meals.
Some people prefer resistance training, calisthenics, and high-intensity exercises. It is an individual case. The critical point is moving the body to reduce excess calories within the context of this article.
Here are practical tips to reduce excess blood sugar.
1 — Consider moderate exercise two hours after the main meals.
2 — Consider 15 minutes of fasted cardio to reduce glycogen stores that increase the utilization of fatty acids. This helped Eliza lose substantial fat.
Even ten minutes of moderate exercise before the main meals can be helpful. For example, I do 100 push-ups, 20 pull-ups, and a few minutes of planks before my dinner.
These quick workouts take me around ten minutes. They also give me mental clarity boosting my mood.
In addition to raising my pulse and reducing excess calories, this 10-minute workout also makes my body insulin sensitive.
When the body turns food into calories, since the muscles need energy when insulin offers blood glucose, the muscles happily accept the sugar.
This small life hack makes my body more insulin sensitive while preventing other metabolic diseases.
Even though the body needs movement, as exercise is a stressor for the body, starting a workout regime, especially for people with health conditions, requires consultation from qualified healthcare professionals.
3 — Give the Liver a Chance to Rest
The liver will never stop working. It even works when we are sleeping. However, we can reduce the load using natural methods.
The most viable solution, from my experience, seems to be time-restricted eating especially cutting snacks.
Throughout history, people have usually eaten three meals a day.
Our ancestors ate only when they found food. They survived times when there was no food, as the body developed a mechanism to use the stored fat as an energy source.
Therefore, if we don’t eat for a while, the body can create necessary energy and blood sugar via the gluconeogenic process. Therefore, millions of people in many cultures regularly fast.
In addition, time-restricted eating is now used as a therapeutic tool to address metabolic diseases. The primary goal of time-restricted eating is not to reduce calories but to give the body a chance to rest.
When we don’t consume food for a while, the digestive system, including the liver, focuses on other vital functions that just digest and metabolize food.
Interestingly, significant biochemical changes happen in the body and brain in a fasted state, especially when glycogen stores in the liver are consumed.
The body turns from sugar consumption to a fat-burning mood. Ketosis is an example of the process.
In addition, it starts the natural cleansing process known as autophagy that I introduced in this article titled: Three Tips to Initiate Autophagy.
Here are three practical tips to give the liver a bit of rest.
1 — Consider cutting snacks.
2 — Consider skipping a meal.
3 — With advice from medical professionals, consider fasting.
For me, the easiest meal to cut was breakfast. It was not and still is not the most important meal of the day. It is just a myth busted by millions of people.
I know that fasting can nicely change brain chemistry. I enjoy the benefits of mental clarity and clean energy from ketosis.
Conclusions and Takeaways
Fatty liver disease is a severe and widespread health condition. I observed several people around me suffering from this awful condition.
They all had excess fat in their body caused by too many calories instigating hormonal imbalance. There might also be genetic factors and other underlying health issues.
We know that consuming too many calories from carbohydrates increases blood sugar. Likewise, fat consumption also creates a lot of calories. However, calories from fat have a less adverse effect on blood sugar, hence releasing less insulin.
As documented in the literature, insulin resistance is the root cause of numerous metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, and some cancers.
As my focus in this article was non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, considering the primary root cause as excess calories increasing blood sugar and turning it to fat molecules due to not utilizing them timely, the viable options are reducing extra calories and burning them timely.
As an energy source and building block for the body, food is essential for our survival and well-being. Nevertheless, like anything else in life, too much food might cause problems.
Therefore, consuming nutrient-dense foods in an amount to meet the needs of our body seems to be a wise approach to preventing fatty liver disease. In addition, giving the liver a rest using a time-restricted eating regime can produce sustainable results.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
As a new reader, please check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting my reviews, observations, and decades of experiments optimizing my hormones and neurotransmitters. I write about health as it matters. I believe health is all about homeostasis.
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