Expert: Li Zhao, Chief Physician and Associate Professor of the Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Peking University People's Hospital
How many friends are around, fatty liver patients are more and more...
There are many causes of this disease, such as high-fat diet, viral infection, alcohol intake, etc., generally divided into alcoholic fatty liver and non-alcoholic fatty liver, we often say fatty liver refers to the latter, this type of fatty liver has become the first chronic liver disease in China.
Many people think that this disease is mostly related to eating, and there is no uncomfortable performance, so it will not be paid special attention to.
But this is actually a big misunderstanding!
Regarding fatty liver, can a mild fatty liver become cancerous? What in life can harm the liver? What signals does the body send when fatty liver becomes cancerous? Today we will make it all clear.
Can mild fatty liver also become cancerous?
Any disease progresses in stages, and the same is true for fatty liver.
If in the early stage we call it simple fatty liver, 80% to 90% of fatty liver patients are in this stage, this situation can be reversed by controlling the cause, but if left unchecked, it will gradually progress to steatohepatitis, fatty liver fibrosis, of which about 0.6% to 3.0% of people will develop cirrhosis, and once the development of cirrhosis is difficult to reverse, of which 40% to 62% of people may develop liver cancer on the basis of cirrhosis.
Therefore, from mild fatty liver to cancer is by no means alarmist, although the process of occurrence is relatively long, but if there is no effective intervention, the disease will eventually change from "quantitative change" to "qualitative change".
What are the triggers for fatty liver?
The liver is the digestive organ of the human body, fat metabolism occurs in the liver, fatty liver refers to a pathological state of excessive fat load in the liver caused by various reasons.
The causes of fatty liver include obesity, hyperlipidemia, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, viral infection, alcohol consumption, etc., of which unhealthy diet and lifestyle are the main causes of fatty liver, such as eating too much high-fat, high-calorie food, excessive intake of sugary foods, irregular diet, often sedentary, lack of exercise, heavy alcohol consumption, etc.
Such bad habits are also related to many other diseases, such as hypertension, coronary heart disease, cerebral thrombosis, etc., in fact, fatty liver is a reflection of systemic metabolic abnormalities on the liver organs.
What toxins do life exposures to harm the liver?
In addition to the metabolic function of the liver also plays a very important detoxification function, such toxins mainly from food or drugs, because the substances in food or drugs are absorbed by the intestine after the first stop with the blood flow is the liver, the liver will convert the toxins in the food into relatively non-toxic substances, with bile or urine excreted outside the body, but there is a detoxification function does not mean that it can be used indefinitely, or even squandered, more than the detoxification ability of the liver will cause "disease from the mouth".
Moldy foods in life (such as moldy peanuts, soybeans, etc., containing aflatoxin), environmentally polluted water quality (for example, aquatic products in polluted seawater may contain heavy metals such as copper and lead that exceed standards), and drugs with clear liver damage (such as anti-tuberculosis drugs, etc.) may harm the liver.
The liver has a strong compensatory capacity, a small amount of toxin intake, the liver can solve on its own, but once a long-term overdose will cause irreversible damage to the liver.
Therefore, doing a good job of prevention is the key, to control the things entering from the mouth, to ensure that the food and water are clean and fresh, to ensure the reasonable and appropriate amount of drugs, and to regularly do physical examinations for the liver.
What are the signs of fatty liver cancer?
China is a high incidence of liver cancer in the country, many liver cancer patients do not have obvious symptoms, so it is difficult to capture an effective early warning "signal", which is why many liver cancer patients are often found in the advanced stage, identifying the high risk factors of liver cancer and regular monitoring is an effective method.
As mentioned earlier, from simple fatty liver disease to liver cancer, it generally goes through the stage of liver fibrosis or cirrhosis, and cirrhosis will have some special clinical signs, such as dark complexion, yellow staining of the skin and sclera, spider-like capillary dilation of the anterior chest and neck, redness of the large and small adichthymal parts of the palms of both hands (also known as liver palms), varicose veins around the navel, and edema of the lower limbs.
These "signals" may point to cirrhosis, indicating that the risk of liver cancer will increase, but to know that cirrhosis itself is also a very vicious disease, rather than looking for signals, it is better to prevent it as soon as possible. Let's talk about how to prevent it.
How to prevent it?
Fatty liver is a typical genetic-environmental-metabolic stress-related disease, so a strict focus on lifestyle habits is the basis for the treatment and prevention of fatty liver.
Healthy eating, strengthening exercise and correcting bad lifestyle habits are the three magic weapons for treating fatty liver: limiting the intake of high-calorie foods; maintaining a moderate degree of aerobic exercise such as brisk walking, swimming, etc. and adhering to it for a long time; and controlling alcohol consumption and avoiding excessive alcohol consumption.