With the gradual improvement of living standards, people's living habits will also change, leading to more and more outbreaks of many diseases. In recent years, fatty liver has also increased significantly in China. Fatty liver has a high incidence and serious consequences to the body, and it is a liver disease that seriously harms people's health. So what are the hazards of fatty liver?

1, the harm of fatty liver

One: Damage to the liver

Fatty liver is the product of liver lipid metabolism disorder, and it is also the pathogenic factor that aggravates liver injury, which is mutually causal and develops in a vicious circle. The increase of lipid droplets in liver cells leads to fatty degeneration and swelling of liver cells, and the nucleus is squeezed away from the center. The metabolism of fat should be carried out in mitochondria, and the transport of fat to the outside of cells is mainly through smooth endoplasmic reticulum. The accumulation of fat in hepatocytes further increases the burden of mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum, and reduces their functions, thus affecting the metabolism of other nutrients, hormones and vitamins. Long-term degeneration of liver cells will lead to liver cell regeneration disorder and necrosis, and then form liver fibrosis and cirrhosis.

2. Induce or aggravate hypertension and coronary heart disease.

Atherosclerosis is closely related to hypertension and coronary heart disease. Studies have shown that patients with alcoholic fatty liver complicated with hypertension and coronary heart disease are prone to sudden death due to myocardial infarction.

Third, promote the formation of atherosclerosis.

Fatty liver patients are often accompanied by hyperlipidemia and increased blood viscosity, among which low-density lipoprotein (LDL) can easily penetrate the intima of arteries and deposit on the walls of blood vessels because of its extremely small molecular weight, which makes the elasticity of arteries decrease, the diameter of arteries narrow and the flexibility weaken, and finally leads to blood circulation disorder and blood vessel rupture, which is life-threatening.

Four: Hepatic encephalopathy fatty liver syndrome (reye syndrome)

Also called visceral steatosis encephalopathy. Its pathogenesis is still unclear, and mitochondrial damage and enzyme activity loss are its pathological basis. The pathological changes are mainly diffuse brain edema and severe fatty degeneration of the liver, liver enlargement and solid texture. Accompanied by obvious brain symptoms: convulsion, progressive disturbance of consciousness and even coma, the mortality rate is as high as 70-80%.

Five: lead to cirrhosis, liver failure and liver cancer.

The final result of various liver diseases is often cirrhosis, fatty liver is no exception, and the probability of hepatocellular carcinoma secondary to cirrhosis is high. Cirrhosis is divided into compensatory stage and decompensated stage. Once liver cirrhosis develops to decompensated stage, it is easy to appear hepatic coma, hepatic ascites, massive hemorrhage of digestive tract, liver failure, hepatorenal syndrome and so on. And it is not far from the end of life.

Six: Acute fatty liver of pregnancy with high mortality.

This disease, also known as acute yellow liver atrophy in obstetrics, is a rare pregnancy complication with a dangerous prognosis. It often occurs in the last trimester of pregnancy, and its clinical symptoms are often similar to those of acute severe liver disease, which can lead to acute liver failure, pancreatitis, renal failure and abnormal systemic coagulation, leading to rapid death. Most pregnant women are pregnant for the first time. Typical cases are acute onset, nausea, vomiting, epigastric pain, backache, hypertension and edema in different degrees, and jaundice is gradually aggravated. Coma, ascites, massive ecchymosis, bloody stool and hematuria may occur in a short time. Once diagnosed, the pregnancy should be terminated as soon as possible. This is the only effective way. If you wait until late liver failure and coagulation dysfunction, and then perform caesarean section or induced labor, postpartum hemorrhage may occur, endangering the lives of mother and baby.

Seven: induce or aggravate diabetes.

Diabetes mellitus is a systemic chronic metabolic disease with unknown etiology, which is mainly caused by insufficient insulin secretion or insulin resistance. It is characterized by hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia and hyperaminoacidemia. According to the survey, about 50% of diabetic patients are complicated with fatty liver, and about 30-40% of fatty liver patients are complicated with diabetes. The blood sugar level of patients with fatty liver is significantly higher than that of normal people. If the blood sugar concentration of obese fatty liver patients exceeds the normal level, although it does not meet the diagnostic criteria of diabetes, it is generally considered as pre-diabetes. Fatty liver and diabetes are a couple. He is my brother. If both are used, it will bring more difficulties to the treatment and accelerate the development of the disease.

Eight: Hepatitis B complicated with fatty liver accelerates the development of liver cirrhosis.

Clinical research shows that chronic viral hepatitis B and hepatitis C complicated with fatty liver will increase the occurrence and development of liver fibrosis and shorten the development time from chronic hepatitis to posthepatitic cirrhosis. Hepatic fibrosis is an inevitable pathological process in which chronic liver develops into cirrhosis. Hepatic fibrosis is a metabolic imbalance between collagen matrix and non-collagen matrix outside hepatocytes, which leads to capillarization of hepatic sinuses and is the molecular pathological basis of hepatic fibrosis. Fatty liver further reduces the function of damaged hepatocytes, which will inevitably accelerate the process of liver fibrosis and promote the formation of cirrhosis.

Nine: reduce human immune function and detoxification function.

The liver is the largest reticuloendothelial phagocytosis system, which can transform human invasive and endogenous antigens through phagocytosis, isolation and elimination, thus reducing the immune function of the liver. Fatty liver is often accompanied by hepatosplenomegaly. Spleen is also an important immune organ of human body, and splenomegaly will cause spleen function resistance. Lymphocyte T cells and B cells mature and differentiate in the spleen, and abnormal spleen function inhibits the function of cellular immunity, so patients with fatty liver are more susceptible to infection because of decreased immune function and poor resistance. In addition, some harmful wastes, foreign poisons and toxins produced in the process of human metabolism, including drug metabolism and decomposition products, must be dissolved in the liver, and liver cells will turn all poisons into harmless substances through oxidation, reduction, hydrolysis and combination. After fatty degeneration of liver cells, the detoxification function is reduced, which is easy to cause endotoxin and exotoxin to stay in the body and cause toxicity to the body.

Ten: Damage to the digestive system of the body

The stomach, intestine, liver and gallbladder are all important organs of the digestive system. Three nutrients (protein, fat and sugar) ingested by human body must be metabolized by liver before they can be utilized by human body. Liver function of patients with fatty liver is damaged, which will affect spleen, gallbladder, stomach and intestine for a long time. Chinese medicine believes that' seeing the disease of the liver, knowing that the liver transmits the spleen, we must first strengthen the spleen' and' spleen governs transportation and transformation'; Chinese medicine also believes that "the liver and gallbladder are both exterior and interior". Liver disease often affects the function of gallbladder, and clinical studies have also confirmed that about 20-30% patients with fatty liver are accompanied by chronic cholecystitis and cholelithiasis.

Eleven: reduce the quality of life and affect career development.

When people are diagnosed with hepatitis B and hepatitis C, they will be shocked because they know the seriousness of viral hepatitis. Classmates, colleagues and family members will be afraid of being infected and refuse to be close to you, which will affect their further studies, employment, joining the army, going abroad and getting married, so they will actively treat them. When people are diagnosed with fatty liver, they often don't care about it or treat it. It is this carelessness that causes fatty liver to develop from simple fatty liver to steatohepatitis unconsciously. Once various clinical symptoms and signs are aggravated and liver function is obviously abnormal, it may take more money and time to "make up", which is very unwise. Due to the improvement of living conditions, the incidence of fatty liver is rapidly developing towards youthfulness or even childishness; Due to the modernization of office conditions, people's activities are decreasing day by day. Friends gathering, social entertainment and rich nightlife are hotbeds of fatty liver. According to the surveys in Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Xiamen, the prevalence rate of fatty liver in men aged around 30 is about 20-30%. White-collar workers, bosses and government civil servants with power, money and successful careers account for the largest proportion. Some of them have symptoms such as dizziness, shortness of breath, fatigue, physical decline, anorexia, fatigue, sexual dysfunction, chest tightness, liver pain, memory loss, irritability, frequent lack of fire, etc., which show their incompetence in the fierce competition and affect the development of their careers. As the saying goes, shopping malls are like battlefields. The winner must be a person with excellent comprehensive qualities such as energy, physical strength, intelligence and ability. We sincerely hope that your career will not be destroyed by fatty liver, an invisible killer, and you should be diagnosed and treated early and go into battle lightly to meet the challenge!

2, fatty liver examination

1. B-ultrasound examination of liver. Liver B-ultrasound examination has the advantages of economy, rapidity, accuracy and non-trauma, and is currently listed as the first choice for fatty liver examination. Diffuse fatty liver is characterized by B-ultrasound, and the echo intensity of liver is greater than that of spleen and kidney, which is called bright liver. Attenuation of liver far-field echo; The blood vessels in the liver are unclear or slender. B-mode ultrasound of localized fatty liver showed a clear edge and weak echo area, which was round or patchy, but there was no mass effect, no vascular bypass or interruption, and even the portal vein normally extended into this area. Localized fatty liver is easily misdiagnosed as intrahepatic tumor.

2. Blood lipid analysis. Neutral fat, total cholesterol and free fatty acid can be increased, especially neutral fat (triacylglycerol) has the most diagnostic value. About 54% patients have elevated cholesterol, but the serum cholesterol concentration has nothing to do with the fat mass of liver biopsy.

3. Liver biopsy Liver biopsy is the gold standard for diagnosing fatty liver. It is advocated to puncture the liver under the guidance of B-ultrasound in order to improve the accuracy of puncture and minimize liver damage. However, because of its trauma and certain danger, it is difficult for patients to accept it. At present, it is mostly used for differential diagnosis. Biopsy specimens of fatty liver showed that large fat globules could push the nucleus aside, and the whole liver cells could divide to form fat cysts. Hepatocyte necrosis and inflammatory reaction were slight or absent.

4. Liver function test. Mild fatty liver with normal liver function. Moderate and severe fatty liver is characterized by moderate and mild elevation of ALT and AST, which is rare. Generally speaking, ALT of obese fatty liver is higher than AST, while AST of alcoholic fatty liver is higher than ALT. Abnormal serum bilirubin; Serum cholinesterase increased by more than 80%.

5.5 Accuracy. The diagnosis of fatty liver by CT and MRICT is higher than that by B-ultrasound, which is of great significance for the diagnosis, classification, quantification and differential diagnosis of fatty liver. Especially for localized fatty liver, it can be more clearly distinguished from liver cancer, liver hemangioma and liver abscess. But its price is higher, and MRI is more expensive than CT, so the diagnostic advantage of fatty liver is not obvious. CT and MRI showed that the density of fatty liver involved in CT became lower, often close to or lower than water. The CT density of normal liver is generally higher than that of spleen. Once the CT value of liver is lower than that of spleen, it can be considered that the CT value of liver is low. Fat infiltration into the liver can see a clear hepatic vascular shadow, which is dry and dendritic, and the vascular shadow is clearer after enhancement. Diffuse fatty liver is generally uniform. Localized fatty liver is more common in the right lobe of liver, especially in the posterior segment of liver. The liver in the lesion area is full, the plot shrinks unevenly and the boundary is blurred. After enhancement, the density of lesions increased unevenly, and vascular shadows could be seen. When doing liver puncture, we must pay attention to it. Although the danger of liver puncture is not great, the liver is an important organ after all, and the indications and contraindications must be strictly controlled.

3. What should fatty liver patients eat?

1. Bean products-the first choice for dietary treatment of fatty liver, including soybean milk, tofu, bean sprouts, etc. Modern nutrition research has proved that bean products are not only nutritious, but also have the function of reducing blood fat. If you consume 30 ~ 50g soy protein every day, you can significantly reduce the serum total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein and triglyceride levels, without affecting the high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level. The researchers pointed out that the lipid-lowering effect of soybean is obviously related to the original blood lipid level. The higher the original blood lipid, the more significant the lipid-lowering effect of soybean.

2. Oats-rich in linoleic acid, accounting for 35%-52% of all unsaturated fatty acids. Vitamin E content is also very rich. Oats contain saponins, which can reduce the concentration of plasma cholesterol.

3. Onion-has the functions of promoting thrombolysis, lowering blood lipid, dilating coronary artery and increasing peripheral blood flow. Foreign scholars believe that eating more onions in middle-aged and elderly people can prevent the occurrence and development of hyperlipidemia, arteriosclerosis, cerebral thrombosis and coronary heart disease.

4. Garlic has the functions of relaxing blood vessels, resolving excessive platelet aggregation, preventing cholesterol biosynthesis and antioxidation. It has been reported that taking garlic powder or garlic essence every day and sticking to garlic can reduce blood pressure by 65,438+00% and serum total cholesterol by 8% ~ 65,438+00% after 4~5 weeks. If everyone eats a garlic every day, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases can be prevented. However, it should be prohibited when accompanied by cirrhosis or obvious hepatobiliary symptoms.

5. The hydroxyl and methylglutaric acid contained in milk can inhibit the activity of cholesterol synthase in human body, thus inhibiting the synthesis of cholesterol and reducing the content of cholesterol in blood. In addition, milk contains more calcium, which can also reduce the body's absorption of cholesterol.