if you've been told you have fatty liver or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease the good news is it's fully reversible and in this video I'll go over the exact steps you need to take to not only reverse it but to do it quickly and start seeing changes in weeks I will also go over actionable advice on the foods you need to eat and the foods you need to stay away from to fix your liver and at the end of the video I will talk to you about other steps you can take to improve your liver health
and we'll also go over the best supplements you can take to help your liver recover and go back to normal hi I'm Dr Leonid Kim and on this channel I discuss the most up-to-date and evidence-based information on the topics of weight loss metabolic Health and Longevity let's get into it now to better understand how to reverse fatty liver we first have to identify what causes it in the first place and it's pretty simple fatty liver is caused by for the most part over consumption of sugars and specifically fructose and sucrose with sucrose being just table
sugar that breaks down into fructose and glucose the consumption of both fructose and sugar sets off a whole Cascade of changes in our bodies the leads to not only fatty liver but also to other conditions like diabetes heart disease dementia and even many cancers now what makes fructose unique is it doesn't stimulate leptin and leptin is a hormone that is released in our bodies after a meal that signals satiety or fullness to our brains so consuming fructose doesn't generate a normal response in our brain that tells us that we're full so it makes it very
easy to overeat if that wasn't bad enough continued consumption of fructose drives the development of leptin resistance which results in persistent hunger and impair satiety even with other foods not just fructose a study published in the American journal of clinical nutrition found in just seven days of high fructose diet increased lipid deposition in the liver and decreased liver insulin sensitivity now how do we avoid fructose well fructose is a simple sugar that's usually found in Honey fruits and root vegetables and humans have been consuming those for hundreds of thousands of years but it did not
pose a health risk until we started eating manufactured fructose and sugar at large quantities now most fruits and vegetables contain fructose however our intestines can inactivate about four to five grams of fructose which is the amount we usually get from vegetables we get a little bit more fructose from fruits however fruits like vegetables are also consumed with a lot of fiber which slows down the absorption of the excess fructose in addition to that many fruits are also rich in vitamin C which blocks some of the effects of fructose and really negates any of the adverse
effects of fructose that we get from fruit so that brings us to the first food group that we need to avoid to reverse your fatty liver and that is sugary drinks now we all know about the dangers of sodas and soft drinks but the sneaky drinks that contain a lot of sugars are juices which are often promoted as healthy frequently given to kids if you drink orange juice apple juice tomato cranberry or any type of juice please look at the ingredient label and see how many grams of sugars you get just from one serving do
not be fooled by statements like it contains natural sugars or it has zero grams of added sugars it may be natural but it's still highly concentrated and it's consumed without the fiber they would normally get if you're eating a whole fruit and it's a lot easier to over consume sugars if we're getting it in liquid form as opposed to eating a fruit itself other drinks that are notorious for just being loaded with sugars are sports drinks and energy drinks now the American Heart Association recommends eating less than 24 to 36 grams of sugars per day
but if you suffer from fatty liver disease I would abstain from all drinks that contain sugars along the same lines I would also avoid eating dry fruit like dates or raisins or prunes yes they're natural and do not contain added sugars but those natural sugars are very concentrated and do not have the volume of the original Fruit which makes it much easier to overwhelm our GI tract and later our liver with fructose and sugars to support that a study published in Jama in 2019 noted that just eight weeks of restricting sugars in adolescent boys to
less than three percent of daily calories has shown significant Improvement in hepatic cytosis another way to fix your fatty liver is to eat more protein and it's especially important to eat more protein for breakfast or whatever your first meal of the day happens to be a recent study published in obesity looked at over 9 000 Australians and found that getting enough protein especially for the first meal of the day had profound effects on what people ate later in the day and eating higher levels of protein for breakfast translated to consuming less food over the course
of the rest of the day but people that had a low protein breakfast were found to eat more energy dense processed foods and foods that were high in sugars so if you find yourself constantly craving for those sugary or processed foods foods that will make your fatty liver worse try to up your protein intake especially for breakfast and aim to get at least 25 to 35 grams of protein per meal if you're getting three meals a day getting enough protein will help you eat less sugar and will help you lose weight and weight loss has
been shown to be one of the most effective ways to improve your fatty liver in fact just five percent of total body weight loss can decrease hepatic steatosis and losing seven percent of total body weight can lead to complete resolution of non-alcoholic stata hepatitis or Nash which is a more severe form of fatty liver now as you increase your protein intake you have to be careful about what kind of fats you're getting in the process animal meats and dairy products are wonderful sources of protein however we do have to watch your intake of saturated fats
and those are usually found in red meat processed Meats butter ice cream as well as many fry Foods now eating red meat is a controversial topic and I happen to follow the camp of it's okay to consume red meat in moderation but that's a whole other conversation for another day a study published in diabetes and Metabolism show that while over feeding with either saturated fats or fructose both increase liver fat the group that was over fat with saturated fats increased liver fat to a much greater degree than the group that was overfed with fructose there
are at least four human intervention studies that have confirmed the harmful effects of saturated fat on hepatic certosis but the one I want to highlight is a double blind randomized controlled trial in which lean individuals were overfed with muffins high in either saturated fatty acids in this case palm oil or polyunsaturated fatty acids this study used sunflower oil and what they found was that just seven weeks of overfeeding resulted in the market increase in liver fat in the saturated fat group whereas the polyunsaturated group call caused a nearly threefold larger increase in lean tissue or
fat-free Mass without an effect on the liver so it's important to not overeat saturated fats and I emphasize not overeating as it's okay to eat saturated fats but in moderation eating more than about five percent of our calories from saturated fats is when we start getting into trouble so what that would look like is eating less fats that come from processed meats or eating less store or restroom bought fried foods or pastries as well as being careful with ice cream or cheeses at the same time we need to eat more of the good fats or
poly or monounsaturated fats that come from fish nuts and avocados and when it comes to oils using olive oil is preferred to using saturated fats like coconut or palm oil the type of fat we eat is especially important for those that are in very low carbohydrate or ketogenic diets where a lot of the energy has to come from fats now keto is a very very effective way to lose weight and improve metabolic health and it's very safe as long as the majority of the fat content comes from polyunsaturated or monosaturated fats as opposed to saturated
fats many people have been successful using ketogenic diets to reverse fatty liver however for just as many people that degree of severe carbohydrate restriction is just not sustainable long term but the good news is that cutting out carbs is not a requirement for fatty liver reversal and it's the quality and the type of carbohydrates that we consume that place a larger role in the treatment of fatty liver eating carbs that have a low glycemic index meaning they do not cause wild swings in your blood sugar are much better for your liver health and carbs that
are high in the glycemic index so while lowering our carbohydrates is generally a good idea for most people I wouldn't worry as much about consuming lower glycemic index carbohydrates that come from legumes Dairy vegetables or fruits and I would stay away from high glycemic index carbohydrates like white bread white rice most breakfast cereals and processed potatoes like french fries or chips to wrap this up other things that are highly beneficial in reversing fatty liver disease disease is abstaining from alcohol in addition to that getting at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity per week and
making sure to include resistance training or muscle building exercises at least two days a week would also help to restore your liver to Good Health if you do all of the things I mentioned in the video you will see changes in your liver biomarkers in the matter of weeks as seen in the studies we discussed earlier and you will eventually fully reverse your fatty liver it is important to do those as soon as possible before your liver turns into a more severe form of fatty liver like Nash or stiata hepatitis and eventually to fibrosis and
even cirrhosis at which point a liver transplant is our only option now if you like to enhance your recovery you can also try adding supplements to the food changes we discussed now to be clear you do not need any supplements to fix your fatty liver as long as you eat the right things and you use real Whole Foods as your medicine however there are supplements that actually show some promise and could be useful in Expediting recovery first therapy with vitamin E at 800 international units a day was actually associated with a significantly higher rate of
improvement of static hepatitis compared to Placebo I would however discuss vitamin E supplementation with your doctor first as high doses of vitamin E High meaning greater than 400 international units per day have been inconsistently associated with an increase in all cause mortality as well as an increase in the rate of prostate cancer so the recommendation to supplement vitamin E is usually reserved to patients with a more advanced fatty liver disease second I would also consider taking omega-3 fatty acids a meta-analysis published in clinical nutrition in 2018 showed the supplementation with Omega-3s especially fish oils like
DHA was associated with an improvement in liver markers like alt and AST as well as with a reduction of liver fat lastly choline has been gaining in popularity as a treatment for fatty liver and a recent case control study show that people that consume high intake of choline and betaine had an Associated 81 reduction in hepatic steatosis however we still need more conclusive research on if the supplementation with choline is actually beneficial for most people and not just those that are calling deficient and at what dose do we actually get any kind of therapeutic benefit
until we get more data I would make sure you get enough clothing for your food which means eating plenty of eggs with egg yolk in them lean meats Dairy as well as getting enough Seafood which also happens to be very rich in omega-3 fatty acids and if you don't eat meat then I would focus on getting your cooling from yogurt sunflower seeds and cruciferous vegetables like broccoli cauliflower or cabbage now this is not a full list of supplements that are commonly used to treat fatty liver but I will make a separate video on that down
the road as it does deserve quite a bit more attention I hope this video was helpful and I will see in the next one
