1 in 4 people have a fatty liver

Hi {{first_name|there}},

It's still Liver Awareness Month, so here's the number Nurse Doza repeats most: about one in four adults has fat building up in the liver. Most of them have no symptoms and have never been told.

The liver stores energy. When more comes in than it can use or ship out, it stores the extra as fat inside its own cells. A little is normal. Past a threshold it's called fatty liver, and the liver cells start working under strain.

The usual drivers aren't mysterious: sugar and refined carbohydrate over years, alcohol, extra weight around the middle, and the insulin resistance that tends to travel with all three.

The liver doesn't have pain receptors in the part that stores fat. Fatigue, brain fog, and a few extra pounds get blamed on everything else. ALT may be only slightly up, or still inside the range. So it hides.

Severe pain under the right ribs, a fever, or yellowing of your skin or eyes needs medical care right away.

Usually one of three ways. A liver panel read for direction rather than a single number. An ultrasound ordered because something on a panel moved. Or an incidental finding on a scan done for something else. The first one is the only one you can plan.

The liver is also the organ with the most capacity to recover when the inputs change, which is the reason Nurse Doza spends so much time on it.

Nurse Doza

This email is for education. It isn't a diagnosis or a treatment plan. If something here sounds like you, bring it to your next visit and we'll look at it together.