Singer Jojo Todynho, 26, has shared her new health care routine on social media. During the process, the artist discovered that she had hepatic steatosis, a silent disease known as abnormal accumulation of fat in the liver.
Hepatic steatosis can happen due to excessive alcohol, obesity or metabolic disorders, which cause the accumulation of fat in hepatocytes, cells that make up the tissue that forms the liver.
The digestive system surgeon Rafael Nicastro explains that the disease is silent because, most of the time, it does not show symptoms. “When you have signs, pain in the abdomen and tiredness are the most common ones,” he says.
The main risk of the condition is progressing to liver malfunction or cirrhosis of the liver, which can later result in liver cancer. Treatment is mainly done with body weight control, stopping consuming alcoholic beverages and adhering to healthy habits.
The relationship between alcohol consumption and obesity
According to endocrinologist Yago Fernandes, from Instituto Nutrindo Ideals, in Rio de Janeiro, hepatic steatosis affects 90% of people who drink alcohol in excess. “Most of the metabolization of alcohol is done by the liver. As the drink is processed, toxic substances are produced by the body itself, ”he points out.
The importance of balanced and gradual weight loss is that the liver is also responsible for metabolizing body fat. If the hepatocytes are already inflamed and fatty, they will not be able to process the rest of the body’s substances, which aggravates the steatosis.
Doctors recommend changes like those Jojo has been making – healthy eating and physical exercise to control excess weight, insulin resistance, cholesterol and triglyceride levels and blood pressure. The liver is responsible for more than 500 functions in our body, such as:
- Detoxify the organism;
- Produce cholesterol;
- Synthesize proteins and store energy.
The organ also produces bile, a compound that helps in the process of eliminating toxins and in the digestion of lipids. The presence of a little fat in the liver is considered normal, but when the infiltration rate exceeds 5% of its volume, the situation begins to get complicated.
anti-inflammatory diet
Nutritionist Tatiane Schallitz explains that it is important to focus on eliminating visceral fat. “It is that inflammatory fat, which releases cytokines, and which, in the long term, will predispose us to chronic non-communicable diseases”, she says.
Visceral fat is associated with fat consumption, but what increases it is mainly excess sugar, especially what is added to food and present in food products.
To reduce visceral fat, the nutritionist recommends investing in:
- Soluble fibers (whole grains, vegetables, fruits and legumes – beans, lentils, chickpeas);
- Antioxidants (red and citric fruits – rich in vitamin C -, vegetables, cocoa, acai pulp, green tea, olive oil and avocado);
- Anti-inflammatory nutrients such as omega-3s (salmon, flaxseed, chia and/or supplementation), turmeric, ginger and fresh herbs.
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