One beer can be equivalent to four beers for an obese liver

He means to pay with a cottage. The largest human internal organ can weigh up to one and a half kilos.

Even such a large and important organ can get sick without a person noticing anything. And the liver of many has become ill.

Up to 25–30 percent of Finns have fatty liver, says Qadri.

A particularly unpleasant combination for the liver is waist obesity and alcohol.

“For a person with a fat waist, one beer can be equivalent to four beers compared to a person of normal weight.”

Why is that so?

Fatty liver can be the result of either excessive energy intake, heavy alcohol use, or a combination of the two.

Most have fatty livers by eating too much hard fat and sugar, such as sausage, pastries and pizza.

Waist obesity in particular exposes the liver to fatty tissue.

“Even if a person is fat based on the body mass index, but the excess fat does not accumulate on the waist but on the hips, buttocks and thighs, they often do not have a metabolic fatty liver.”

Metabolic fatty liver means that a person has too much fat in his liver cells and has a metabolic risk factor, such as high blood pressure or blood sugar or abnormal fat values.

Liver can also become fat as a result of heavy alcohol consumption.

The way the fatty liver was created affects the risk of serious liver disease, i.e. cirrhosis, in different ways.

In the population surveys of the Institute of Health and Welfare, people’s height, weight, waist circumference and alcohol consumption have been measured, for example.

Researchers have been able to find out afterwards how different risk factors and their combinations are connected to diseases.

“Studies have found that waist obesity and alcohol together damage the liver more than either factor alone.”

Let’s open this with three categories.

First there is a person who has waist obesity but does not like alcohol. He has a certain risk of developing serious liver disease in the next ten years.

Then there is a person who does not have waist obesity but who likes alcohol. He also has a certain risk.

The third is a person who has waist obesity and who likes alcohol.

“Logically, you could think that the risk of the third would be the sum of these two. But now 1+1 is not two but much more,” says Qadri.

“The risk multiplies.”

One an alcohol dose means, for example, a bottle of medium beer or 12 centiliters of wine. In a person with fatty liver, 1 to 2 servings of alcohol per day doubles the risk of serious liver disease over about ten years.

It means that he has to be hospitalized due to liver disease, gets hepatocellular cancer or even dies.

“In women, the same amount of alcohol causes an even greater risk than in men.”

When obvious waist obesity is added to the equation, the risk increases dramatically. Qadri illustrates it this way:

Let’s choose a random group of people from all Finns and put them in order based on waist obesity.

When the fattest third of the group is taken, one restaurant serving of alcohol per day increases the risk of serious liver disease by more than five times.

“A person of normal weight needs to drink four times the amount for their risk to rise to the same level.”

Getting fat is an emergency for the liver, which messes up its function and changes sugar and fat metabolism.

Metabolic fatty liver is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

Such a person is prone to, for example, a heart attack.

Those who develop life-threatening liver disease tend to have waist obesity and excessive alcohol consumption.

It is not known exactly why the combination of excess weight and alcohol is so destructive to the liver.

One possibility is that the burning of alcohol produces more harmful oxygen radicals than normal, which damage liver cells.

“This has been seen in animal and cell experiments.”

Alcohol is an energy-dense cytotoxic agent. The liver has to focus on burning the ethanol in alcohol so that it can get rid of the poison quickly.

“Alcohol overrides everything else in metabolism,” says Qadri.

The liver is like a factory where fat flows from the body’s adipose tissues and food. So that fat does not accumulate in the liver, it should also be removed at the same rate. One way to get rid of fat is to burn it for energy.

“When the liver burns ethanol, it cannot burn fatty acids at the same time, so fat starts to be stored in the liver cells.”

The liver also makes new fat from alcohol, and alcohol accelerates the release of fat from fat tissues. These contribute to worsening fatty liver.

Alcohol the effect on the liver varies from person to person. For some, the harm comes from even less use.

Hereditary predisposition also plays a role. About 40 percent of Finns carry at least one copy of a gene mutation that predisposes to fat accumulation in the liver.

“About one in twenty Finns has received a copy of the gene from both parents. People with two copies have three times the amount of fat in their liver compared to an identical person who does not have a single copy of the gene.”

If you are sober and of normal weight without other risk factors, the gene is not harmful.

“But if there is a gene mutation, overweight and heavy alcohol consumption, it is a triple-bad combo.”

Fatty just pay, it’s a cottage. In severe obesity, the size of the liver even doubles.

The most important treatment methods are dieting and reducing alcohol consumption.

“When losing weight, fat leaves the liver first. A weight loss of about 5-10 percent will most likely cure fatty liver completely.”

Even after stopping drinking, fat can be reduced from the liver in a couple of weeks.

“Fortunately, the liver is very capable of repairing itself.”

You can assess the condition of your liver With Terveykylä’s risk calculator.

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