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What does the liver do?

The liver:

• Stores iron reserves, as well as vitamins and minerals
• Makes bile to help digest food
• Detoxifies poisonous chemicals, including alcohol, beer, wine, and
drugs - prescribed and over-the-counter as well as illegal substances
• Stores energy by storing sugar until you need it
• Makes your blood
• Manufactures new proteins
• Makes clotting factors to help blood clot
• Removes poisons from the air, exhaust, smoke and chemicals we
breathe.

What does nutrition have to do with your liver?

Everything we eat, breathe and absorb through our skin must be refined and
detoxified by the liver, so special attention to nutrition and diet can help keep
the liver healthy.

Why is the liver so important in nutrition?

85-90% of the blood that leaves the stomach and intestines caries important
nutrients to the liver where they are converted into substances the body can
use.

Can poor nutrition cause liver disease?

It is actually much more likely that poor nutrition is the result of chronic liver
disease, not the cause. On the other hand, a balanced diet with adequate
calories, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates - can actually help the damaged
liver to regenerate new liver cells.

How common is liver disease?

There are over 100 known liver diseases. The most common diseases are
gallstones, viral hepatitis, cirrhosis, cancer of the liver and some children's liver diseases.

What is fatty liver?

Fatty liver is not a disease, but a pathological finding. A more appropriate term
is fatty filtration of the liver.

What causes fatty liver?

Fatty liver can be caused by certain chemical compounds, nutritional, or
endocrine disorders. Drugs or chemical compounds that can cause fatty liver
include alcohol, tetracycline, cortisone, phosphorous and carbon tetrachloride.
Of these alcohol is by far the most common cause. Inflammation usually
accompanies exposure to these toxins and is responsible for the associated
symptoms of fever, fatigue and jaundice.

Nutritional causes of fat in the liver result from starvation, obesity, protein
malnutrition and intestinal bypass operation for obesity. In obesity, the fatty
deposits are accompanied by some inflammatory changes and mild scarring of
the liver.

The endocrine causes of fatty liver include diabetes mellitus and fatty liver of
pregnancy. In both cases, a large amount of fat can be rapidly deposited in the
liver leading to expansion of the liver with tenderness in the upper right part of
the abdomen. In diabetes this occurs only in juveniles. Fatty liver during
pregnancy occurs near term and may result in premature termination of the
pregnancy.

Can fatty liver easily be identified?

Fat in the liver does not often produce any symptoms because it is usually
deposited slowly. When the fat content is increased rapidly, the liver expands
and the covering is stretched and pain results.

How does fat get into the liver?

Fat enters the liver through diet and from fat stored in the fatty tissue. Under
normal conditions, fat from the diet is usually metabolized by the liver and
other tissues. If the amount exceeds what is required by the body it is stored in
the fatty tissue. Eating fatty foods does not produce a fatty liver.

Can fatty liver lead to other liver diseases?

Fatty liver can be present in patients with alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis or
may be an isolated finding. Present evidence shows that while fatty liver is
usually present in excessive alcohol intake, it probably does not lead to the
development of alcoholic hepatitis or cirrhosis. In fact, most individuals with
alcoholic fatty liver do not develop the more serious forms of liver disease.
However, continued alcohol ingestion has been known to cause alcoholic
hepatitis and cirrhosis.

How is fatty liver treated?

Treatment of fatty liver is related to the cause. Fat is decreased by removal of
the chemical compound or drug. Nutritional causes are treated by altering the
availability of fat coming into the liver. This is accomplished by providing
available carbohydrates or by adding protein to overcome a complete or large
deficiency in protein needed to make lipoproteins (proteins not capable of
being dissolved in water).

How can I avoid fatty liver?

Some recommendations on avoiding fatty liver are listed below. This listing is
by no means complete. There may be certain activities you should avoid which
pertain to your circumstances directly. Always consult your physician if you are
in doubt.

• Do not drink to excess: Alcohol can decrease the rate of metabolism
and secretion of fat, leading to fatty liver.

• Watch your diet: Obesity is a common cause of fatty liver and weight reduction to a normal body weight should be encouraged. Although less common in Canada, starvation and protein malnutrition can result in fat build-up in the liver.

• Seek medical advice: Your physician can advise on appropriate diets to
follow.

What are gallstones and how are they formed?

Gallstones are lumps of solid material that form within the gallbladder. The two
major types are cholesterol gallstones and pigment gallstones.

What are the most important risk factors for developing gallstones?

The three most important risk factors are body weight, increasing age and
being female.

What is the gallbladder and what does it do?

The gallbladder is a small pear-shaped organ that averages three to six inches
in length. It lies underneath the liver in the upper right side of the abdomen.
The gallbladder serves as a reservoir for bile, the fluid utilized by the body to
digest fatty foods and assist in the absorption of certain vitamins and minerals.

How are gallstones formed?

Some bile components (such as cholesterol) are not very soluble. When there
is too much of these bile components, they separate and form a solid. This
process causes the formation of gallstones - also known as cholelithiasis.

What symptoms are associated with gallstones?

Patients with symptomatic gallstones experience severe abdominal pain, and
suffer further complications such as jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes),
and inflammation of the gall bladder, bile ducts, liver or pancreas. However,
about 80 per cent of people who have gallstones have no symptoms. These
people are said to have so-called "silent" gallstones with no associated pain.
Gas and indigestion are not symptoms of gall bladder or gallstone disease.

How are gallstones diagnosed?

Gallstones are usually diagnosed by ultrasound. Other procedures, such as xrays,
may also be used. Silent gallstones are detected incidentally during the
investigation of another problem.

How are gallstones treated?

Several gallstone therapies are available to people with this disease:
Open Cholecystectomy - Under general anaesthesia, the patient's gall
bladder is removed through an abdominal incision.

Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy - Surgeons remove the gall bladder through small abdominal incisions using a lighted tube (called a laparoscope).

Extracorporeal Biliary Lithotripsy - In this procedure, doctors find the
gallstones using an ultrasound machine and position the patient so the
high-energy shock waves focus on the stones. The waves break the
gallstones into fragments, which either pass into the intestine or are
dissolved with the help of medication.

Other Treatment Methods - Oral Dissolution of gallstones by means of a
medication, ursodeoxycholic acid (ursodiol), involves no surgery, and is
therefore suitable for patients who are at high risk surgically. The best
candidates are those with very small cholesterol gallstones and those who
have mild symptoms.


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