Fatty Liver Disease (FLD) - Diagnosis, Causes and Treatment

What is fatty liver disease?

The disease in which excess fat develops in the liver is also known as Fatty liver disease (FLD). Often, there are no or few signs. Occasionally the upper right side of the abdomen can be exhausted or painful. Cirrhosis, liver cancer, and esophageal varicose veins can have complications.

Types of fatty liver disease

Two types of liver fatty illnesses occur:

1. Non-alcoholic liver fatty disease (NAFLD).
2. Alcoholic liver disease.

NAFLD consists of basic liver fatty and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Alcohol, type 2 diabetes and obesity are the main threats. Other drugs, such as glucocorticoids and hepatitis C, have other risk factors.

Those with NAFLD develop basic fatty liver and others develop NASH. Diagnosis is based on a history of blood testing, medical scans, and sometimes liver-biopsy.

The treatment of NAFLD is typically achieved through dietary modification and exercise to contribute to the weight loss. Liver transplantation can be an choice for people severely impaired.

More than 90 percent of heavy addicted individuals develop fatty liver, while about 25 percent develop extreme alcoholic hepatitis. The treatment of fatty liver diseases is typically through dietary changes and exercise to induce weight loss.

Signs and Symptoms

There are no or only few symptoms of fatty liver disease sometimes. Occasionally the upper right side of the abdomen can be exhausted or painful.

Causes

Metabolic syndrome (diabetes, hypertension , obesity, and dyslipidemia) are commonly associated with fatty liver (FL), but can also be attributed to one of several causes.

1. Alcoholic drinks

Alcoholism is one of the causes of a fatty liver because toxic metabolites such as aldehydes are formed in the liver during alcohol metabolism. This is most often the case of chronic alcoholism.



2. Metabolic factor

Bleeding, weber-Christian disorders, glycogen storage, lipodystrophy acute fatty liver



3. Health factor

Obesity, malnutrition, complete parenteral nutrition, extreme loss of weight, syndrome of refection, bypass, gastric bypass, bacterial junior diverticulosis



4. Medications and toxins

Amiodarone, methotrexate, diltiazem, tetracycline expired, highly active retroviral medication, glucocorticoids, hepatotoxins, (e.g., phosphorus, mushroom poisoning) environmental hepatotoxins.

Diagnosis of fatty liver

The majority of people are asymptomatic and typically are incidentally discovered due to irregular liver function tests or to unrelated hepatomegaly. In 50 % of patients with simple steatosis, elevated liver enzymes are found.

In the nonalcoholic version, even in alcoholic FLD, serum alanine (ALT) levels are normally higher than aspartate transaminase (AST) levels. Easy blood tests may be used to determine the seriousness of the condition by measuring the degree of hepatic fibrosis.

AST-to-platelet ratio (APRI score) and several additional scores based on the blood test results can detect the level of hepatic fibrosis and predict potential development of liver cancer, for instance.

Treatment

Fatty liver can be treated with healthy diet. Fatty liver diet can do miracle for a person suffering from fatty liver disease.

Decreased caloric intake by at least 30 percent or about 750-1000 kcal / day has resulted in improvement in the level of hepatic steatosis. For persons who suffer from NAFLD and NASH, weight loss by diet and exercise combined has been shown to improve or solve the illness.

Although the treatment of fatty liver disease (FLD) alone was not recommended in 2017, it has been shown that over 90 percent of people undergoing the surgery have reversed obesity FLD, NAFLD, NASH and advanced steatohepatitis.

Choline has been shown to reduce symptoms for long term total parenteral food triggered by a fatty liver disease. This could be caused by a methionine cycle deficiency.