Many of you may have accidentally discovered in an upper abdominal ultra sound examination that you have a fatty liver, which your doctor identified as normal and asked you to walk more and watch your diet. The truth is that non-alcoholic liver disease is one of the most common liver disorders today affecting 25–33% of the population. What it actually means is that there is accumulation of fat in the liver cells, which is linked to a higher risk of metabolic syndrome and other related diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, obesity, etc.
What is quite strange though, is that although it’s a frequent finding, few people visit me as a dietitian-nutritionist specialized in autoimmune diseases, inflammation and clinical nutrition with plant-based education, to help them with their diet for this particular problem. However, the fact that the liver is the largest organ in our body -after the skin- and helps to store energy, digest food and remove toxins from the body means that we need to take extra care of it.
The good news is that nutrition can seriously help with this. Tzu Chi Health Study in Taiwan studied how being vegetarian can make a difference and found that vegetarians had 21% less risk of developing Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD). 2127 non vegetarians and 1273 vegetarians took part in the study, with no alcohol consumption and no history of hepatitis and what was also interesting was that by replacing soy with meat or fish, the risk increased by 12-13%. At the same time, replacing a serving of whole wheat with a serving of processed cereal, fruits and juice also show a (lower) rise in the risk, of about 3-12%.
Going vegetarian isn’t the only way you can make sure you’ll stay healthy. You can go even further, as National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey with 18,354 adult participants studied for 5 years showed 21% reduction of risk in those who followed a plant-based diet. There’s a catch, though. If your plant-based diet consists of many processed foods, fried meals and processed cards, not only you don’t have protection, but the risk goes higher. But if your plant-based diet is balanced, with a variety of whole plant foods, you could have 36% less risk of developing NAFLD and some benefits that are linked to a healthier body weight, according to a study published in October 2022 in Nutrients.
So what are the main points of protection against a fatty liver?
-Follow a balanced, mostly plant-based diet with a variety of whole plant foods. Besides the benefits of the foods themselves, you’ll be able to cut down calories easily and lower your body weight, if needed, which helps as well.
–Avoid red and processed meat and saturated fat in general. Replace saturated fats with mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fatty acids.
–Avoid processed carbs and fructose as well.
–Say no to alcohol.
-Drink coffee if you enjoy it (black, no sugar and milk). Coffee can cut the risk by 23% and can protect you from liver cancer as well.
Πηγές
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36235752/
https://shireenkassam.medium.com/review-of-the-weeks-plant-based-nutrition-news-15th-january-2023-32b59fb755d5
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32920163/
