The liver – The liver is an important organ in the body which is strategically located to process everything that enters the intestine through the mouth before releasing them into the blood. It helps the body to digest food through the production and release of bile, store excess food which is released in time of starvation / fasting and remove toxic products from the body.
This refers to a build-up of fats in the liver due to heavy alcohol consumption. This affects effective functioning of the liver.
The liver normally breaks down alcohol into simpler products when it gets into the body. This process generates harmful waste products which cause damage to liver cells. These toxic wastes also weaken the body’s defense mechanism.
Though the liver cells can regenerate themselves when some of them die while processing toxic products, there is a limit to which they can do this, especially in the face of continuous damage due to heavy alcohol use.
When the liver is overwhelmed by prolonged excess alcohol intake, the cells do not have enough time to regenerate themselves. Therefore, the dead cells never get replaced by new ones and are therefore replaced by fat cell, thus the name.
Alcoholic fatty liver disease occurs in those who have been drinking alcohol heavily for a long time. The extent of the damage caused is directly related to the quantity of alcohol intake. It is worse in women and obese individuals. Alcoholic fatty liver represents the first stage of liver disease due to alcohol and it is reversible. Other stages include alcoholic hepatitis and liver cirrhosis.
Alcoholic fatty liver disease is an important indication that your level of alcohol consumption is dangerous to your health if not cut down or stopped.
Fatty liver disease, in most cases, is a silent disease as it presents with no symptom. It is usually diagnosed during investigation for other disease conditions. When present, symptoms may include tiredness or little discomfort on the upper right side of the abdomen. These symptoms are not reliable as they are non-specific to alcoholic liver disease.
There is no specific treatment for alcoholic fatty liver disease. The only known effective means of dealing with it is to stop drinking alcohol. Once you stop drinking, the liver will start recovering gradually. This may take some months or years.
The length of time it takes and the extent to which the liver can recover depend on the amount of damage done to it by alcohol before stopping. If damage is minimal by the time of recognition, recovery may be complete or near complete.
The only means of preventing alcoholic liver disease is to avoid alcohol intake or stay within the recommended limits, if you must drink.
