Stealthy liver disease affects one-third of all Americans

For anyone, even slightly overweight, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is a surprisingly common threat that is proving difficult to detect and approximately one-third of all Americans have the potentially fatal disease-and don't even know it. The disease often manifests itself with memory loss and erratic behavior, as liver function is reduced and the brain is affected. This can lead to misdiagnosis and a lack of treatment while the disease continues to develop in the liver.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - According to Dr. Michael Curry, a hepatologist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, about one-third of all Americans suffer from disease and of that number, about 20% will develop nonalcoholic steathohepatitis, or NASH. Of that 20% about 20-30% will develop cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease and will require a transplant to survive. "That's about 6 million people. We won't have the ability to treat all those patients," Curry says. "If we even have a fraction of that number of patients, it will overwhelm liver transplant programs."

The root cause of the disease is the buildup of fat in the liver. Most at risk are the obese, but even being slightly overweight places a person at risk. While the disease causes no symptoms for most people, it can cause symptoms for people of any weight, including those just slightly overweight. As the disease progresses, it can cause swelling, vomiting blood, and extreme behavior. Some victims have sold their houses for as little as $100, exposed themselves in public, or behaved violently. And because victims may not be alcoholics, doctors may not even be looking for it; doctors check the liver in cases involving alcoholics, but may ignore it in the case of non-drinkers. In cases where symptoms are mild, patients may go without treatment until the only option for survival is a transplant.
 
As with all medicine, prevention is the best cure of all. Doctors recommend losing weight, exercise, and most importantly, changing diet to avoid fatty foods. A patient who has the disease by makes these changes early in its progression may even reverse the disease entirely. Doctors stress that people should make lifestyle changes before the disease develops because it is difficult to detect and in most cases, the attention comes too late.

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