Hello, new here, been told I have fatty liver disease

[wiserlady]

This came as a shock to me when over the past few years I have deliberately lost two stone in weight, very rarely eat processed, refined, sugar etc. NEVER DRINK. Exercise. Then I thought hey hang on I use various medicines that contain steroids and ppis, and according to google these can damage the liver. Any thoughts?

[Richard-Allen]

Well done, you are indeed a wiserlady, your name is very apt. You are questioning and looking for answers, that is a positive approach. Fatty liver disease is becoming all too common these days. On my website I use a BBC Video that was made back in 2011. Here it mentioned that children between to ages of four and eleven are showing signs of fatty liver. It would be interesting to see what those people are like today, 9-years on: liverlifecafe.co.uk/A%20Tic...

During absorption and digestion, the carbohydrates in the food you eat are reduced to their simplest form, glucose. Excess glucose is then removed from the blood, with the majority of it being converted into glycogen, the storage form of glucose, by the liver's hepatic cells via a process called glycogenesis. All unwanted carbohydrates are stored for later as fat.

I understand that sometimes there is a little war going on within our bodies. When the liver see's that there is enough sugar, it tries to send it to the kidneys so it can be flushed out. The kidneys in turn see this sugar as being an important source of energy and so sends it back to the liver. I take Empagliflozin, which is a drug that basically tells the kidneys to get rid of the sugar anyway.

Your right to want to check your medication as a sauce of liver damage. I often do this too. I try to avoid using American websites though as these can be sometimes scary and confusing. The other factor to consider is that we often take more than one drug at anyone time. (I take five at the same time). While each drug may appear and be totally harmless to the liver, what isn't always obvious is how toxic a concoction of multiple drugs taken all at the same time would be.

All drugs , lotions and ointments all end up having to go through the liver at some point. As you'll now know, fatty liver disease is totally reversible, But you are right to be looking at the cause and effect aspect. Good for you.