Fatty liver is no joke!! It can progress to Cirrhosis or even Hepato Cellular Carcinoma.

Let’s understand the real cause of fatty liver:

It happens when we give the liver more (excess fuel – when we eat more than we need) to do than it can handle. And most of the times, this excess fuel is accompanied by excess Insulin which is a fat storing hormone. That’s how humans end up with storing fat (from Glucose and Fructose). If any cell of our body can share that fuel, it will not put much burden on the liver.  What if the fuel we are supplying can only be processed by the liver, no other cell in our body can use it for their own, then there will be too much burden on the liver.

No. 1 is ALCOHOL, which is metabolized by liver only (Alcoholic fatty liver disease).

No 2 is Fructose, (Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver disease), if we eat 100 gm of sugar in a day, it has 50% fructose, and only liver cells can handle and metabolize this fructose converting it into cholesterol and triglycerides. If liver is producing more triglycerides than it can export through VLDL to all other tissues, it starts building up in the liver, pancreas and intestine. (Visceral fat or bad fat or omental fat or inflammatory fat).

No 3. Which only liver can do is to clean up the toxins. If the liver is already busy in handing excess fuel in the form of glucose or fructose, or in metabolizing alcohol and it will not be able to process those toxins effectively and those toxins will start building up in the body, causing numerous health issues.

No 4. Insulin could play a part, when you are insulin resistant, and you have a lifestyle where your insulin levels are constantly high. It can aggravate fatty liver as more and more sugar will be converted to fat in the liver. And as insulin levels are high, you can’t burn fat now. So high insulin makes the fatty liver worse.