The greatness of your Liver cannot be underestimated in terms of your day to day health as well as future health outcomes. It is a gland constructed of millions of Hepatocytes and weighs in at approximately 1.4 kg in a healthy adult. It is a team leader, with other vital organs, to detoxify our entire body. A poorly functioning or diseased liver can be disguised as decreased energy and vibrancy, increased toxicity, moodiness, skin discolouration, poor skin and eye clarity, just to name a few. The liver has a long job list including secreting bile for absorption of dietary fats, carbohydrate metabolism to maintain blood glucose levels, lipid metabolism for energy and cholesterol synthesis, protein metabolism for energy and urea production, processing of drugs and hormones, excretion of bilirubin (from the heme of aged red blood cells), synthesis of bile salts used in the small intestine for the emulsification and absorption of lipids, storage of glycogen, vitamin A,B12, D, E and K and minerals such as iron and copper, phagocytosis break down of aged red blood cells, white blood cells and some bacteria’s, and activation of Vitamin D.   This is an incredible list and one that can be harmed by poor dietary and lifestyle habits including alcohol, caffeine, refined sugars, trans fats, sprays and chemicals as well as viruses such as Epstein Barr.

So what is Fatty Liver?

Essentially it is the replacement of a fully functioning hepatocyte with a fat cell. It occurs when the hepatocyte can no longer function due to accumulative poor dietary intake. Traditionally we have considered fatty liver to be linked to alcoholism, through inflammation, scarring and death of liver cells. However, Non Alcoholic fatty liver disease is growing at an alarming rate, resulting from loading the liver with excessively poor dietary habits (in particular sugars, fast and fried foods) and is estimated to effect approximately 1 in 3 US citizens. It is certainly linked with the increasing overweight and obesity epidemic in Australia. When our functioning liver cell count decreases, so too does our liver volume to conduct all of its vital processes, and the capacity for disease to develop.