Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) and What Can Be Done About It

What do you need to know about non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and how you can treat it. It’s important to know what this condition is and that its NOT related to alcohol consumption. 

Now years ago non-alcoholic fatty liver disease didn’t exist cause anyone that had a fatty liver had it from excessive alcohol consumption. But then in the last century this started showing up on non-alcoholic drinkers, it even started showing up in teenagers and kids. Now the non-alcoholic causes of liver disease is more common than the alcoholic one.

Watch the video below:

The main underlying cause of this is consuming too much energy particularly carbohydrate energy. Basically energy excess and weight gain. So the standard American diet or standard western diet, however you want to refer to it, of the high carb, high fat, high processed food, and high refined sugars.  That is the number one cause. 

As the name of this disease suggests, its an infiltration of fat within the liver. Here’s the biggest problem, it can progress to a condition called NASH (Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis) or even cirrhosis which is end stage irreversible liver disease.  That’s a big problem. Its thought that this disease NAFLD (Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease) is going to be the number one cause of liver transplants over hepatitis, liver cancers or alcoholic fatty liver disease. It just shows how prevalent it is becoming in our society as society is becoming more and more insulin resistant, metabolically dysfunctional, obese and everything that goes along with energy excess, specifically refined carbohydrate and sugar excess. 

So now how do you treat it?  You treat it by removing the offending agent which is energy excess, too much sugar and refined carbohydrates as well as excess fructose consumption. Its no surprise that studies have shown that low carb and keto diets are very effective at treating NAFLD. In fact there was a 12 week trial using a Mediterranean-style keto diet and in those 12 weeks they showed complete normalization of fatty liver. Now that’s pretty quick if you ask me.  

Your doctor can diagnose NAFLD by liver function blood tests or through imaging such as ultrasound or MRI.  This 12 week study shows that this is something we can address and is a big problem for those that have it. What’s empowering is that if you do have this or are in the preliminary stages of it, it is reversible. 

Now since this is a serious medical condition and if you are going to treat it with nutritional intervention as mentioned in the study above, please make sure you do it under the guidance of a medical professional or health care provider. Do not do this on your own. 

If you need help, I can help you in-person or online or I can refer you to someone as well. Also a great resource for finding a medical professional in your area that understands low carb and keto diets can be found at DietDoctor.com. 

Hopefully this was helpful on what NAFLD is, what the causes are, how to treat it and what can be done.  

If you know of anyone that may benefit from this, please consider sharing it anywhere on social media as you may help them resolve their health issues or at a minimum, drastically improve them.

Happy fat loss,

Tyron