Latest / Doctor Turned Health Coach / How to Reverse Fatty Liver Disease Without Medication
Transcript
- 0:22Today, we're going to be talking about fatty liver disease.
- 0:25Now, most of you have heard about this, but maybe you've been told by your primary
- 0:31care doctor that your ALT,
- 0:34or your ASD, basically any of your liver enzymes, are slightly elevated,
- 0:40and they suspect that it could be fatty liver disease.
- 0:43Other times, you might catch this as if you've had an ultrasound done,
- 0:46and they show that there is some, what we call, steatosis in the liver. So what's going on?
- 0:53Briefly, the liver is very good at storing fat, but in a nutrient-rich,
- 1:00sorry, in a calorie-rich and nutrient-poor environment, oftentimes that's a problem.
- 1:05Now, I'm a family medicine physician, and I see this a lot.
- 1:09The good news is, by the end of this podcast episode, you'll have four ways
- 1:14that you can improve the fatty liver and hopefully reverse it altogether without any kind of medication.
- 1:23So currently, the best way that we can tell if somebody has any kind of fatty
- 1:27liver disease is to just look at their liver enzymes.
- 1:30So I always look at the ALT over the AST because it's a much more sensitive,
- 1:37enzyme that tells me that, oh, this is probably fatty versus alcohol.
- 1:41So if somebody drinks alcohol, their AST usually will go up first.
- 1:45And I polled, by the way, everybody on my sub stack, which is my healthy aging newsletter.
- 1:51And I asked them, do you even know what your ALT liver enzyme is?
- 1:54And 37% said that they don't know.
- 1:58And about 12% said that it's more than 20. So ideally, we probably want it to
- 2:04be in the 13 to 15 range, even though your lab test is going to tell you that
- 2:09up to 40 is probably okay. That's actually not true.
- 2:13It already means that there is a little bit of fat developing or depositing inside the liver.
- 2:19A lot of people ask me, okay, doc, so why do I even develop fatty liver?
- 2:22Why is it that my wife doesn't? Why is it that my partner, who is maybe more obese than me, doesn't?
- 2:28It has a lot to do with your genetics. But at the heart of it is,
- 2:33once excess glycogen gets stored in your liver, once too many
- 2:38carb or sugar calories get converted into a storage molecule inside your liver,
- 2:44they overflow and the liver is going to turn them into fat because it thinks
- 2:49that it needs to deposit it.
- 2:51The classic terrible example, in my opinion, that people give is fragois, I think.
- 2:58It's basically, I think it's a duck liver.
- 3:01And the way you do that is by force-feeding the duck a lot of food.
- 3:05And that's how their liver becomes fatty. And apparently, it's a delicatessen.
- 3:10Number one, how do we, what's the evidence-based of reversing fatty liver disease?
- 3:15Number one is to eliminate any kind of liquid carbs and fructose that you drink.
- 3:22So this is your orange juice.
- 3:23This is anything with high fructose corn syrup. This is soda.
- 3:27This is anything with sugar.
- 3:29All of these things, unfortunately, go directly to the liver because of their high absorption.
- 3:34And they generally signal the liver, hey, you got to absorb this and turn it
- 3:39into fat. So number one, get rid of those.
- 3:42That is an absolute no-no if you have any fatty liver disease or are at risk
- 3:47for fatty liver disease. Number two, optimize your eating window.
- 3:51What I mean by that, there is a time when you don't eat that we call fasting.
- 3:57When you don't eat, usually overnight, your body tends to have a better signal
- 4:02to say, hey, I probably should be burning the fat.
- 4:05But if you're eating all the time, or if you're eating as soon as you wake up
- 4:09to the very end of the day, you don't leave your body much time to burn fat.
- 4:15So, of course, naturally, somebody might ask me, so you're telling me I should
- 4:18do intermittent fasting? Not really.
- 4:21There isn't really a cure by doing aggressive intermittent fasting for fatty
- 4:26liver disease. In fact, it can make it worse.
- 4:28All I'm saying is try to just eat a healthy window.
- 4:31For example, it might be from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., whatever it might be.
- 4:37Keep it healthy, keep it sustainable. Number three, increase your cruciferous
- 4:43vegetables and choline.
- 4:45So there are certain compounds and chemicals...
- 4:48That are really necessary in order for your body to transport the excess fat,
- 4:55out of the liver and into your GI tract for it to just basically come out of
- 4:59your stool when you go to the bathroom.
- 5:01And the way you do that is by getting enough cruciferous vegetables and choline.
- 5:05Now, of course, everybody says, oh, choline, yeah, that's the thing in eggs.
- 5:09So I'll just eat more eggs.
- 5:11The problem is eggs are also calorie dense, which could cause a problem with
- 5:16certain people. So don't just go downing a bunch of eggs. You can also do it
- 5:20with cruciferous vegetables.
- 5:21And as long as you have, again, a balanced diet.
- 5:24So for example, if you're eating soy foods, whole grains, nuts and seeds,
- 5:28potatoes, avocados, and green leafy vegetables, trust me, you're going to get
- 5:33more than enough choline-rich foods to help your liver get rid of this extra
- 5:37fat, which it really wants to do.
- 5:39And the final one I'm going to leave you with is zone two exercise.
- 5:43I've talked about it a lot before.
- 5:46Or the cool kids call it zone two. To be honest, it's no different than just
- 5:49moderate intensity exercise where you're sort of feeling like,
- 5:53oh, I'm definitely exercising. I'm no longer just walking on the beach.
- 5:57But you certainly aren't really huffing and puffing and sweating and can barely
- 6:01catch your breath. No, it's kind of in that heart rate zone of like 60 to 70% of your max heart rate.
- 6:08So let's say if you are 47 years old, you subtract 220 by 47.
- 6:14You're left with 173 and 60 to 70 percent of that lands you somewhere in the
- 6:19104 to 120 range right now there are other ways to calculate your max
- 6:24heart rate i'll leave that up to you but just somewhere in that zone 2 moderate
- 6:28intensity exercise is going to help
- 6:30burn the fat because then fat becomes the primary fuel source for your body,
- 6:36now i told you that by the end of this i'm.
- 6:41Convinced that you yourself can reverse your fatty liver disease so i have a
- 6:45liver fix guide for anybody with fatty liver disease just check out the show
- 6:50descriptions click on the link in,
- 6:53for me to get this pdf to you all i ask for is your email and your name the email is all i care about
- 7:00and i'm going to send this pdf guide to you for free and on top of that i'm
- 7:04going to send you some other helpful information that over the next few weeks
- 7:08can really help you fix, reverse, and get rid of this fatty liver disease once and for all.