Fatty Liver – Symptoms and Treatment
Fatty liver is a very insidious disease. A third of all Americans suffer from this disease (known among the medical community as steatosis) and don’t even know about it. In fact, liver symptoms are very broad and are often attributed to bad genetics or bad luck, but once you know them it is easy to recognize liver disease.
Fatty liver symptoms
Mild liver damage doesn’t show on liver tests. However, even in its mild form it can wreak havoc in your metabolism and drug clearing systems, both dependent on the liver.
The most important manifestation of liver disease are diseases resulting from it: obesity (especially the one hard to get rid of due to low metabolism), diabetes, high cholesterol, immune system deregulations, such as frequent cold, rashes, or allergies.
However, more subtle symptoms may be the only indication of fatty liver: bad breath, coated tongue, dizziness, tiredness, circles under the eyes, headaches, and feeling bloated all the time are common liver damage symptoms that are often ignored.
Fatty liver treatment
Once you know you have fatty liver, the next logical step is wanting to treat it. Treatment can be done in four simple steps and an optional step:
The first step is removing the causes of liver damage. This can be any form of drugs, including alcohol, caffeine, doctor prescribed drugs (talk with your doctor before removing them), homeopathic remedies, and recreational drugs. You can find out more causes of liver damage below.
The second step is adjusting your diet. A diet rich in vegetables and fruit and poor in animal products reverses liver damage all by itself and all the other methods only serve to accelerate the process or for advanced cases.
The third step is exercising. This will signal your liver it is time to start burning fat and the first fat it burns is the fat inside its cells.
The fourth step is taking certain herbal supplements that cause liver regeneration. These are turmeric, milk thistle, artichoke, and ginger, among others. You can also learn more about this below.
The fifth and optional step is to go on a liver detox for a week once a year. This will not do much on its own, but it can really kick-start a liver healing program.
