Aishwarya Iyer
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'Fatty liver disease' is one of the many diseases that are caused by an erratic lifestyle. All those junk and processed food, excessive red meat, alcohol, uncontrolled diabetes and skipping of physical exercises can lead you to have a fatty liver disease. This if, untreated can lead to liver failure, cirrhosis or rarely to liver cancer.
Simply put, fatty liver is the accumulation of fat in the liver. Under normal circumstances, liver has no fat. However, it is unclear where this fat comes from. It may be acquired from other parts of the body or the liver may be absorbing an increased amount of fat from the intestine.
This World Liver Day, Dr Ravi Mohanka, Chief Liver Transplant Surgeon and Head of the Department, Global Hospitals tells us 5 things you should know about the disease:
1) Fatty liver disease is fully irreversible: 'Very few people know that if you come in with the fatty liver disease right in the beginning, it is completely reversible'. Timely treatment, controlled and moderated diet along with few lifestyle modifications are the key to reversing the disease.
2) It doesn't exhibit symptoms unless it has progressed: Most of the people who come in with the disease get to know about it through their routine health check-up. That is why you should keep getting routine tests done.
Read: Fatty liver disease- causes, treatment and prevention explained.
3) Fatty liver disease could or could not be due to alcohol: 'It is popularly believed that only people who drink alcohol get a fatty liver disease. But this isn't necessarily the case'.
4) Fatty liver disease during pregnancy is a fairly common situation: Women in their gestation period can get a fatty liver disease. Nevertheless, it is not a cause for worry because 'it gets cured in majority of the cases after the delivery of the baby'.
5) There are few medicines available for treating fatty liver disease: 'There are very few medicines to cure the ailment. And a lot of them that are available are to control cholesterol, diabetes or weight loss which, in turn helps in curing the fatty liver disease.' Also readnatural ways to keep fatty liver disease at bay!
There are multiple researches underway to discover medicines to treating the disease. 'We are hopeful that something very effective may soon be made available for the public. Currently, these medicines are in the trial stage,' added Dr Mohanka.
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