What is Fatty Liver

Symptoms of a fatty liver

What is fatty liver? Well most people will not even know that they have it because there are no symptoms if you are in the first stages of the disease.

If your are in the second stages of non alcoholic fatty liver disease then you might experience a dull ache on the right hand side of your chest, just where the liver is as shown in the picture.

So what is causing the pain? If you eat too many fatty foods then your liver does not have time to break all the fat down and it stores it up, this causes your liver to increase in size and in turn causing the dull ache in your right rib cage area.

If you are in stage one of the disease the only way that you will know that you have it is if you have some blood tests done.

If there is something wrong with your liver it will release more of its enzymes into your blood stream and your tests will show a high level of liver enzymes in your blood.

What causes a fatty liver?

The diagram here shows what fatty liver disease is and what it can do, if you continue to abuse your liver it will eventually be unable to work properly.

A bad diet and no exercise will cause this, you need to cut down eating fatty foods like too much red meat and cheese.

If you are overweight and do no exercise at all and have a bad high fat diet then there is a good chance that you might have the disease.

There is nothing to worry about if you are prepared to change your lifestyle but if you don't then the problem could become more serious as you get older.

If you continue to eat fatty foods then after you have reached the second stage of the disease you will cause damage to your liver cells and you will then enter the cirrhosis stage.

Who could get a fatty liver?

You are most likely to get non alcoholic fatty liver disease if you are overweight and have a really bad high fatty diet.

The average adult should eat a maximum of 70g of fat on a daily basis; someone that is dieting will aim to eat about 50g of fat a day.

The body does need fat so it's not a good idea to cut it out altogether, you should just be aware of what fat you are eating and cut down on the foods with high saturated fat in them.

The nhs have a great information page about what fats you should and should not be eating, just follow the link to the facts about fats page.

In short men should eat no more than 30g of saturated fats in one day and women should eat no more than 20g.

If you want to know what is a good way to cure your fatty liver or to avoid getting one then you could have a look at my fatty liver disease diet plan.

If you have just been diagnosed with the disease and want to know what is a good way to cure it just have a read of my full story on the home page.

My non alcoholic fatty liver disease story

In 2012 I was diagnosed with non alcoholic fatty liver disease, I went to the doctors after I was having a dull ache pain just below my right side rib cage.

The doctor sent me for some blood tests, which revealed high liver enzymes; I then had to have more blood taken.

The next set of blood tests were to rule out hepatitis, which it did of course, the doctor then sent me for a scan at the hospital.

I then had the scan and was sent to get the results from the consultant, he said I had a fatty liver; I asked him what it was I needed to do to get rid of it.

He told me that I needed to lose some weight and do some exercise, which of course I did and got myself back in shape by doing so.

After I got home from seeing the consultant I Googled "what is fatty liver" and from there drew up my diet and exercise plan.

How i cured my fatty liver

First of all I looked at improving my diet and cut out the rather large amount of cheese I was eating and replaced the fatty red meats with Quorn.

I also cut down my portion sizes by buying myself a smaller plate; I started eating a whole lot more fruit and veg.

I started doing some light exercise every other night using one of my partner's fitness DVDs.

After a few months of doing this I had lost one and a half stone and was feeling a whole lot better in myself.

Before I was diagnosed I was always feeling run down and did not have a lot of energy, I now realise it was down to the fatty deposits on my liver and my bad diet.

If you still want to read more about what a fatty liver is then there is some great information over at www.nhs.uk, it talks about who else might be effected including people with type 2 diabetes and people with high blood pressure.