Big Liver Secret

(that’s a pun: a fatty liver is an enlarged liver!)

It may get boring, being right ALL the time! But then, you want to be able to trust what I say, I suppose?

So what am I feeling smug about this time?

Liver health; non-alcoholic liver disease (NAFLD). It’s getting worse, as I predicted. Thing is, if you heard me speaking, introducing my essential liver health guide, you might remember I teased a little by saying that alcoholic cirrhosis accounted for only about 6% of liver disease and deaths.

There was something that killed many more people and many more people were doing it to themselves…

Well, the secret answer was obesity and NAFLD. I quoted a statistic that over 50% of mortality from cirrhosis was caused by obesity leading the liver damage. That’s pretty grim.

But a brand new study shows it is MUCH worse than the figures I had available. In data presented at the International Liver Congress in Berlin, an analysis of responses from 39,500 adults, researchers found that by 2005-2008, this proportion had risen to 75.1%.

Also, the results showed that, as it stands today, the prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease has doubled from 5.51% to 11%. If that trend continues for another 20 years, the prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is expected to increase by 50% by 2030.

That means 1 in 7 of the population gambling away their health and destroying their livers.

“Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is fast becoming one of the top concerns for clinicians due to the obesity epidemic and its potential to progress to advanced liver disease, which significantly impacts on overall liver-related mortality,” Mark Thursz, vice secretary of the European Association for the Study of the Liver, says in a news release. “This data highlights a serious concern for the future, and the enormous increasing health burden of NAFLD.”

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is associated with obesity, insulin resistance (prediabetes) or diabetes, high blood pressure, and elevated blood fats.

Thursz says there is a need to continue to inform the public of the risks of obesity and the importance of diet and exercise. Well, I’ve done that, in the form of a compelling eBook laying it all out for you in simple terms.

I’ve covered just about everything relevant you can squeeze between two covers.

You can learn more and get yourself a copy of the “must have”: information here:

http://www.informed-wellness.com/liver-kidneys

(It’s packaged together with an equally great book on kidney health)

[SOURCE: International Liver Congress, Berlin, Germany, March 30-April 3, 2011].