On The Beat 03/18/20 - Gastro- Fatty Liver

Troy Thompson is joined by Dr. Richard Heard and Dr. Ricky Johnston in today's segment as they discuss fatty liver.

Troy: welcome to on the beat, everyone.

I'm troy thompson.

In the studio with me today is dr. richard heard, and of course, dr. ricky johnston of gastroenterology associates of columbus.

And today we're talking all about, you bet, the fatty liver.

How are you, my friends?

Dr. johnston: great.

Thank you.

Dr. heard: great.

Troy: okay.

Fatty liver.

What does it mean?

Dr. johnston: in short, basically just means fat deposits in the liver.

And there's a number of things that can cause that, but the reason that it can be a problem is over time, that fatty deposits can lead to inflammation.

Eventually that inflammation can lead to scarring and eventually that scarring can even progress to cirrhosis of the liver.

Troy: okay.

Common?

Dr. heard: fatty liver is very common.

Getting to cirrhosis is less common, but if you look at nationwide statistics right now, fatty liver is one of the fastest growing causes of progression to cirrhosis and liver transplant.

Troy: okay.

Now, how are we getting a fatty liver?

Is it our diet?

Is it because our liver is not processing?

Dr. johnston: the two most common reasons we see for fatty liver or alcohol for one, but then also obesity.

And that's really what the rising rates are due to is the rising rates of obesity, because some people who are overweight, you get fat deposits in the liver just like you can get them anywhere else in your body.

So that's the main reason... troy: well, hold on.

You just said one of the reasons of cirrhosis of the liver, which we think about ... i'm sure most people sitting at home ... of alcoholics, cirrhosis of the liver.

So if we have a fatty liver from foods, because cirrhosis of the liver is hardening of the liver, right, isn't that opposite?

Dr. heard: no, no, no.

With the fat in the liver, slow little bit of inflammation that right now you don't know you have, it's not causing any problems, maybe a little bit of an abnormal liver test, but over 30 or 40 years of this mild irritation, you're going to get some scarring and hardening in the liver.

And that's what causes the problem.

Troy: that's why we also cirrhosis of the liver.

Dr. johnston: right.

Both of them take 20, 30 years.

Troy: okay.

How do i know i have a fatty liver?

Is there any symptoms?

Dr. johnston: usually you don't.

It's very much a silent disease.

Usually it's found incidentally on people who have x- rays, ct or a sonogram for some other reason, or they're incidentally found to have elevated liver enzymes on just basic labs that their primary care provider may perform.

Troy: what's the treatment before anything serious and what happens when it becomes serious?

Dr. heard: weight loss is a, number one, the most important thing.

Number two is avoid alcohol.

And then number three actually is for me, and i tell my patients to drink black coffee.

Troy: oh, really?

Dr. heard: yeah, there's a recent study that showed that drinking black coffee can decrease your risk of progression to cirrhosis by actually a pretty good bit.

So that's just a simple, harmless thing i'd like to add in there.

Troy: what about liver transplant?

Do we get to that level with this?

Dr. johnston: potentially, yeah, with cirrhosis.

So again, it takes a long time, but once you develop cirrhosis, which is basically just end stage disease of the liver where it's not functioning like it should be, and again, that may not cause any symptoms for a period of time, but then when you start to develop complications from cirrhosis, eventually that might culminate or the only way to treat that is with the liver transplant.

Troy: once we get to the level of liver transplant, that's, like you were saying, 30 years down the road, but if someone's abusing their food and you are just becoming obese, can that speed up that process of hardening, like the more you drink, the quicker it's going to happen, the more you eat, the quicker it's going to happen?

Dr. johnston: i'm not sure about that, but certainly if you did multiple things to damage the liver, that is if you had fatty liver from being overweight and then you drank alcohol on top of that and then maybe you ingested medications or had hepatitis c or something like that, so you get this kind of synergistic effect between multiple different things, it can have a detrimental effect.

Troy: we're getting back to the basics, you know what i mean?

We're going to live a more simple life.

Dr. johnston: we should.

Troy: that's what it's all about.

Thanks for coming in.

We really appreciate it.

If you want to find out more information about dr. richard and dr. ricky, there it all is up on the screen for you.

Give them a call.

They will take care of all your needs.

Back after this short break.