Chronic Liver Disease: The New Ominous Epidemic

The liver as a vital organ and the diseases that can affect it are rarely thought about but should be seriously considered. An epidemic is occurring, resulting from our eating and drinking massive amounts of sugar. In the modern age, we have been dealing with an increasing amount of cane and beet sugar in our diet. When the food industrial complex switched our source of sugars to high-fructose corn syrup, an epidemic began of an unheard of disease—non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which staggeringly affects up to 25 percent of people in the United States.

            As its name suggests, NAFLD is the buildup of extra fat in the liver that is not caused by alcohol. It’s normal for the liver to contain some fat. But if more than 5 to 10 percent of the liver’s weight is fat, then it is called a “fatty liver.”

            If not treated, NAFLD can progress into non-alcoholic steatotic hepatitis—NASH for short. It begins with the infiltration of our liver with fat; increasing inflammation, characterized by higher levels of liver enzymes; and progressing to fibrosis or scarring, referred to as cirrhosis. The end result is liver failure and ultimately death. NASH is now the number one cause of liver failure and the number one need for liver transplantations.

            In the past, patients were rarely diagnosed with this disease. But now there are more and more cases, often coming unfortunately at the terminal phase of this disease. There are more than 30 million Americans with some form of liver disease, and even 1 in 10 children are thought to have NAFLD. The good news is that diagnosing this disorder early is easy and reversing its pathology is also relatively easy to achieve, although demanding.

Prevention is first and foremost the primary focus and can be achieved through the following steps:

1. Stop eating or drinking any products containing high-fructose corn syrup. Make a real effort to reduce all sugar from food choices. Sugarcane naturally contains a rich source of the mineral chromium, which is necessary for the safe and efficient metabolism of carbohydrates—sugars and starches. However, when it is refined, as is the case in our present food supply, 90 percent of the chromium is removed, making cane sugar a disease-causing food.

2. Being overweight raises the risk of NAFLD and NASH significantly. To be more fit and/or to avoid adding on pounds, make changes in both diet and lifestyle.

3. Take a multivitamin and mineral supplement containing B-complex vitamins, inositol, choline and at least 2000 mcg of chromium.

Ways to Diagnose NAFLD and NASH:

1. Annual lab testing for CBC/multichem, including a liver panel. Look for elevated levels of the liver enzymes ALT, AST, GGT and alkaline phosphatase as well as an elevated level of albumin. All of these will alert one to abnormal liver function.

2.  Liver ultrasound will demonstrate fatty infiltration of the liver.

Treatment options can include:

1. IV therapy, average up to six weeks (five days/week) using intravenous alpha lipoic acid in addition to oral alpha lipoic acid in the amount of 300 mg three times a day. Add to the above regimen liver-supporting nutrients, including milk thistle, L-glutathione, N-acetyl cysteine and B-complex vitamins.

2.  Anti-scarring therapies to reverse liver failure.

COEM, Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, can assist with the prevention and treatment of liver disease. For more information, visit COEM.com; for an appointment, call 843-572-1600.