Some foods for fatty liver disease can lower your inflammation and reduce your risks of chronic diseases. Learn more about your options here.
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In this article:
- The Real Culprit of Liver Damage
- Fructose Source
- Liver Damage Complications
- Signs of a Fatty Liver
- Dietary Fat and Fatty Liver
- The Fat You Need
- The Early Tell-Alls
- Reversal and Prevention
- 5 FAQs on Foods for Fatty Liver Disease and Other Diseases
The Link Between Carbohydrates and Fatty Liver Disease
The Real Culprit of Liver Damage
Many foods for fatty liver disease are great for your health. Before you know what to eat, though, here’s a question: did you know there’s a link between carbs and a fatty liver?
Find out how carbohydrates play a role in the development of this condition here.
Have you ever had foie gras? It’s a French delicacy made by force-feeding a duck or a goose to give it a nice fat liver for a unique flavor. Pretty shocking stuff.
But what do they feed the animals to produce this fatty liver? Fat, right?
Nope! Sugar, corn, and starch.
So when your doctor tells you that you need to reduce the amount of fat in your diet and replace it with carbohydrates, may the alarm bells ring loudly in your head.
Here’s why. Research shows carbs—NOT FAT—cause a buildup of fat in your belly and liver.
That’s bad news and pretty counter-intuitive.
What actually happens is sugar switches on a fat-production factory in your liver—a process called lipogenesis. It’s your body’s first response to sugar, particularly fructose.
What is lipogenesis? This is the process where the body converts carbohydrates into fatty acids, the building blocks of fats.
Yes, fructose is the most detrimental type of sugar for your fatty liver. It heads straight for your liver when the lipogenesis kicks in immediately.
Fructose Source
Consuming too much fructose can also cause obesity. In turn, being overweight or obese may also result in life-threatening diseases, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and even liver failure.
Are you consuming a lot of fructose? Fructose can be found in:
- Soda
- Fruit juices
- Tea, when sweetened with sugar
- Energy drinks (e.g. Red Bull)
- Wine coolers
- Starbucks Frappuccino
- Cakes, pies, and pastries
- Candy bars and cookies
- Ice cream and other frozen treats, including low-fat fruit yogurts
- Breakfast cereals, including corn flakes, raisin bran and some granolas, cereal bars
- Condiments, salad dressings and sauces, including reduced-fat French dressing and balsamic vinaigrette
- Dried fruits: raisins, dates, and figs
- Canned fruit, jellies, and jams
- Sweet Asian sauces, including teriyaki sauce
- Honey, maple syrup, and agave syrup
- Brandy and liqueurs
Liver Damage Complications
Fatty liver is now the most common liver disease and one of the leading causes of liver transplants, too. It can also lead to the sort of inflammation that can trigger insulin resistance, pre-diabetes, and the formation of visceral fat (where fat builds up in the abdominal cavity and can surround arteries and organs like the stomach, intestines, and liver).
That’s not the only type of havoc excess sugar and starch can create in your body. You might be saying hello to high triglycerides, low HDL (that’s the “good” cholesterol), high bad cholesterol (yes, LDL), and a higher chance of a heart attack.
Signs of a Fatty Liver
This is quite disturbing. Most people have absolutely no idea they have a fatty liver.
Some do not recognize fatty liver symptoms or just completely ignore them when they appear. The possible signs and symptoms include:
- Abdominal swelling
- Enlarged breasts in men
- Enlarged spleen
- Red palms
- Enlarged blood vessels just beneath the skin
- Fatigue
- Yellowing of the skin and eyes (jaundice)
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Dietary Fat and Fatty Liver
Want to hear something crazy? You’d think dietary fat would make a fatty liver worse, right?
Wrong! Dietary fat actually TURNS OFF fat production in your liver.
That’s weird but cool!
Dietary fat doesn’t trigger insulin secretion in the pancreas (unless you combine it with carbs, which spells disaster). When you consume the good types of fat, you can increase your metabolism, significantly decrease hunger pangs, and stimulate fat burning.
The Fat You Need
Not ALL kinds of fat are good, though. If you want to combat the symptoms of fatty liver, here’s what you should do:
- Increase the amount of coconut or medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oil in your diet
- Increase healthy saturated fat foods, like grass-fed beef
- Get plenty of omega-3 fatty acids into your meals (try chia, flax and omega-3 oils containing krill oil)
- Cut processed carbs of all kinds and whole grains (if cold turkey is very challenging, try consuming small amounts of millet, quinoa, and buckwheat while you transition)
- Consume lots of fiber-rich, low-carb vegetables, like leafy greens
Medium-Chain Triglyceride Fats Definition: These are partially man-made fats created by processing coconut and palm kernel oils together. They offer a wide range of positive health benefits, including weight management and brain health improvement.
This may sound strange, but the government tells us to limit saturated fat to 7-10% of all calories consumed. This includes the whole grains!
The truth is, healthy saturated fats can lower inflammation when they are part of a low-carb, omega-3 rich, and high-fiber diet plan.
The Early Tell-Alls
Watch out for the early signs that may be associated with fatty liver, including:
- Cravings for carbohydrates
- A little belly fat
- Eating lots of sugar and/or flour
You can also get a blood test or an ultrasound, which can both pick up the disease. Ultrasound is more sensitive and likely to detect it.
Reversal and Prevention
If you’re worried about getting fatty liver, or you already have it and would like to improve the situation, here are the key strategies to try:
1. Choose High-Protein Foods
Fill up on nuts, seeds, eggs, fish, chicken, and grass-fed meat. Integrate about a palm-sized serving of these foods into every meal, especially your first meal of the day.
2. Start a Liver-Repair Plan with Detoxifying Foods
Eat detoxifying foods like broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussel sprouts. Pack in around 1-2 cups of leafy greens like cabbage, arugula, watercress, kale, and collards every day.
Try increasing your garlic and onion consumption, too! Their natural sulfur content helps you flush out liver toxins.
Beets and carrots are also nice.
3. Supplement Yourself to Boost Liver Health
Healing is optimized when your body is getting everything it needs to transform you into a healthier version of yourself. Some helpful liver-supporting supplements include:
- Herbs like organic milk thistle, turmeric, and dandelion
- Nutrients such as lipoic acid and N-acetyl-cysteine, which increase levels of the powerful mother-of-all-antioxidants: glutathione (as does milk thistle)
- Vitamins and minerals like B vitamins and magnesium are essential
4. Add Healing Oils to Get Healthy Fats
As mentioned above, healthy fats are absolutely critical if you want to have healthy liver cells. Consume:
- Olive oil
- Avocados
- Coconut oil or MCT oil
- Grass-fed butter
- Fish and krill oil
Healthy liver enzymes also need to get plenty of low-sugar fruits, like berries, vegetables, lean animal protein, seeds, and nuts into your body. All of these help curb sugar cravings and combat sugar damage.
5. Get Moving to Improve Metabolism
Daily exercise improves insulin resistance. Walking for 30 minutes is a great start. Plus, your dog will love it, too.
6. Say Farewell to the Carbs for Better Overall Health
This is the last but most important point here. If you do anything, eliminate the sugar! Say ciao to high-fructose corn syrup, most significantly, from your fatty liver diet.
Tell starches you no longer need their services, that you choose health, want more energy, and are on the road to bulletproof wellness.
5 FAQs on Foods for Fatty Liver Disease and Other Diseases
By now, you already have ideas about foods for fatty liver disease. We also believe, however, you want to ask more questions about liver-related conditions and diet.
Well.Org strives to help you in that area with these five FAQs:
1. Is Fatty Liver Cancer?
One of the most common misconceptions about fatty liver is it’s a malignant condition. It is actually a hepatic (liver) disease that leads to the organ’s damage or scarring.
Two of the common reasons for fatty liver are alcohol and diet. If it’s the latter, then experts call it a non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
NAFLD affects a significant portion of the population. Studies published in the World Journal of Gastroenterology showed at least 25% of Americans and Europeans have it.
Under it are different kinds such as acute fatty liver, which can occur during pregnancy. Another is nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which is the buildup of fat in the organ.
When you don’t eat the right foods for fatty liver disease or get the right treatment, however, the disease can progress. It can ultimately lead to permanent scarring called liver cirrhosis.
Cirrhosis is one of the risk factors for liver cancer due to cellular damage. Note that only liver function tests such as liver biopsy can confirm the diagnosis.
2. Is Fatty Liver the Same as Metabolic Syndrome?
Many also tend to use the terms “fatty liver” and “metabolic syndrome” interchangeably, but they mean two different things.
Metabolic syndrome refers to a group of symptoms or abnormalities that indicate the risks of particular chronic diseases. These are cardiovascular disease or heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension.
These biomarkers can include higher blood sugar (glucose levels), blood pressure, and cholesterol levels.
A study, however, revealed an association between metabolic syndrome and fatty liver. It implies a person with metabolic syndrome may also have a fatty liver.
It may also suggest that foods for fatty liver disease may also work to lower the risks of other metabolic-related conditions.
3. Can You Learn How to Defat Your Liver with Ketogenic Diet?
The ketogenic meal plan is a high-fat diet program that promotes a low intake of carbohydrates and moderate consumption of protein. Although the ratios can vary, usually, 70% of your diet should come from fats.
It may sound counterintuitive, but a study showed foods for fatty liver disease that fit the keto diet may help protect the liver and lose weight.
Interestingly, the research highlighted why the keto diet is hard to maintain. In the long run, it may do the opposite, stimulating fatty liver.
At the end of the day, a well-balanced diet may be the way to go to deal with fatty liver. If you can, shift to a plant-based diet as it encourages low consumption of carbs and more varied nutrients.
Shifting to a healthy diet isn’t easy, though. You are more likely to succeed by starting with food options like Alkalizing Greens.
4. What’s the Connection Between Coconut Oil and Fatty Liver?
Is coconut oil good for fatty liver? As mentioned, it can be one of your sources of foods for fatty liver disease.
One of the primary reasons is its ability to help the liver produce ketones. These are substances from fat stores in the liver that provide energy to the brain when your body is low in sugar.
5. How Long Does It Take to Reverse Fatty Liver Disease?
One of the best things about the liver is the cells can regenerate. In fact, it explains why a live person can donate up to 70% of their liver to somebody.
It’s the only organ in the body that can grow back as long as you don’t experience any complication. It means if you catch fatty liver disease early, then you may be able to reverse your diagnosis.
How soon does it regenerate? The liver can grow back within 30 days.
Within this period, however, you need to be proactive. To recall:
- Consume lots of fluids, including green tea or Rising Energy.
- Do not include red meat into your list of foods to eat. It has a tendency to increase inflammation.
- Combine diet and exercise for weight loss, which is an effective treatment for fatty liver.
- Rather than opting for a low-calorie diet, consider a well-balanced diet or a plant-based diet.
- Make foods and drinks out of green leafy vegetables, fruits, and healthy fats such as nuts and seeds.
- Cut back or avoid processed foods and free sugars, which are sugars manufacturers add to their products.
- Consider taking vitamins and minerals for supplements. These include vitamin D, which can improve cholesterol levels.
With more and more people having fatty liver nowadays, it is time to take action toward healthy living.
Skip the carbs. Eliminate the sugar. After all, you only have one liver to take care of.
Have you checked your liver lately? How willing are you to change your diet and eat foods for fatty liver disease? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on April 13, 2017, and has been updated for quality and relevancy.
Brandon Bennett
Brandon Bennett is the owner of Grapefruit Wellness, a health coaching and mentoring company. As a Certified Nutritional Psychology Coach, he works with clients on the mind-body connection; with an emphasis on the role nutrition plays in creating balance between the two. Brandon is also a one-on-one Yoga Instructor. Prior to coaching, he worked in professional sports for close to 10 years as a Premium Sales Consultant, with his most recent team being the Dallas Cowboys.
