October 2018
Does Keto Heal a Fatty Liver - Everything You Should Know - Thomas DeLauer
How does a ketogenic diet, or a low carb diet, affect a nonalcoholic, fatty liver? Spoiler alert, it doesn't affect it how you think it would.
All right, let's get down to the science. So, first off, we have to understand what a fatty liver is. You see, at first glance, people are generally afraid of the ketogenic diet because it's high fat, and they think that that's going to contribute to a fatty liver. But in reality, they're a little bit unsure of what actually causes a fatty liver. So let me clear that up for you. See, fatty liver is also known as steatosis. And basically all it is, is when the liver starts to get so inflamed with extra triglycerides and extra fat, that it literally develops fatty tissue. It becomes literally a fatty liver.
So, all it is, in essence, is when you have more fat than your liver can process. More fat than your liver can actually metabolize, so it stores in the liver and it causes, well, exactly a fatty liver. Now, the interesting thing is, it's usually something known as De novo lipogenesis that triggers this. What triggers De novo lipogenesis is too much carbohydrate consumption. When we consume way too many carbohydrates, or even a little bit too many carbohydrates, it goes through a process known as De novo lipogenesis where it gets turned into fat.
Now, specifically something like high fructose corn syrup, or fructose in general, if we have too much of it, it is generally processed in the liver to begin with. So if we have too much that the liver can't handle, the first place it's gonna store it is right there in the liver. Therefore, contributing to a nonalcoholic fatty liver. Now, the thing is, with a fatty liver, there's not a whole lot of symptoms. We don't really know when it's coming. You can feel a little bit fatigued. You can feel run down. You can have some abdominal pain. You can have some swelling in your abdomen where your liver would be, but by and large, unless you get a biopsy or unless you have a doctor look at you and give you a diagnosis, it's pretty hard to determine if you truly have a fatty liver. That's why it can be so dangerous.
So let's talk about some ways that the ketogenic diet actually improves and helps a nonalcoholic fatty liver. So we obviously know that reducing sugar consumption can play a big role when it comes down to modulating how much fat is actually stored in the liver. But what about the actual effect of improving, or reversing, a fatty liver through the ketogenic diet? Well, it does it through a couple of different pathways. And one of the pathways, I'm gonna reference with a study. But first, let's talk about the basic one.
Fatty livers are usually decreased in size, with general weight loss. Whether it's fat weight loss, or even water weight loss. You see, there's two different components to a fatty liver. There's the fibrous component of a fatty liver, and there's the inflammatory component of a fatty liver. You see, because we had extra fat around the liver, when we have extra inflammation those fat cells are inflamed. They're bigger. Therefore, contributing to a bigger, larger fatty liver. So when we're looking at the ketogenic diet, or when we're looking at a low carb diet, we're losing weight one way or another. Whether we're losing it from inflammation, or we're losing true, legitimate fat, in which case we are improving a fatty liver. So, by and large, that's the biggest way that you're gonna improve a fatty liver. If you go on a low-carb diet and you lose weight, viola. You're fatty liver is going to decrease in size. But that's not that exciting, and that's not really crazy, emerging science. So let's get a little bit more nitpicky on this.
References
1) The Effect of a Low-Carbohydrate, Ketogenic Diet on Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: A Pilot Study. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10....
2) Low-carbohydrate ketogenic diets, glucose homeostasis, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
3) A Low-Carbohydrate Ketogenic Diet Combined with 6-Weeks of Crossfit Training Improves Body Composition and Performance | ClinMed International Library | International Journal of Sports and Exercise Medicine. (2017, March 18). Retrieved from https://www.clinmedjournals.org/artic...
4) Jo Ann Day. (2017, May 3). Diet for Fatty Liver Disease: The Johns Hopkins Digestive Weight Loss Center. Retrieved from https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/diges...
