The 2 Stages of Fatty Liver Disease | Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD)

For a long time, alcohol was the number one killer of the liver. Like we knew, you drank too much, you could end up with cirrhosis. Then for a while, it was Tylenol. People were overdosing on Tylenol, taking it too much. It was in so many cold and flu products and every product under the sun. And Tylenol is very hard on the liver. So once we figured all those pieces out, you would assume that fatty liver disease, or liver issues in general would decrease, But they've actually increased over time and they continue to increase. Non alcoholic fatty liver disease, meaning it's not from alcohol, it's excessive fat buildup in your liver. There's two stages that they're now identifying. There's this fatty liver where you've stored fat, but you don't have a lot of inflammation going on, and your liver is still functioning okay. Your liver might just look enlarged or show up on, like I said, CT scan or ultrasound. NASH non alcoholic steatohepatitis, or fatty liver disease is when you add inflammation to the picture and that can start to cause fibrosis and scarring. So the liver isn't functioning well, and it can even lead to cirrhosis, which means your liver can no longer do its processes because it's so scarred down. That can also lead to liver cancer. So this used to be really uncommon. The statistics just continue to rise and rise and rise. And so the nih, the National Institutes of Health in the United States are saying that about 24% of US adults have non alcoholic fatty liver disease, and up to six and a half percent have nash, where they have that scarring or that fibrosis, which can lead to cirrhosis and liver failure.