Study about high fat diet and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease


(Yas) #1

Hi everyone,
I just came across this study, claiming that a high fat diet contributes to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and insulin resistance. I am kind of new to keto and it all sounds very complicated and scary. Does anyone have more information about this but easier to understand?
Thanks.

Ref: Acute dietary fat intake initiates alterations in energy metabolism and insulin resistance
http://www.jci.org/articles/view/89444#top


(AnnaLeeThal) #2

I think that this would need to be looked at specifically in the setting of a Ketogenic or LCHF diet. Many people here have reversed their fatty liver disease using Keto.


#3

This is not a study that adequately tests high fat diet. It’s actually a high carb with high fat diet. It is quite obvious if someone eats high fat and high carb, they can damage their liver, and other parts of the body. What would happen to you if you ate cake, ice cream and milkshakes everyday? No need for a study to tell me that’s a bad idea!

Here’s an excerpt of the study:

“Animals had ad libitum access to water and a standard chow diet.”

Yeah, so for instance, the mice had access ad libidum to standard chow…and then they introduced high fat, to see what happens.

I’m not impressed. Glad my tax money didn’t fund thus study. Too bad the European people got robbed of their taxes to fund this.


(Yas) #4

I did not think about the high carb part.
I think there should be a page/wiki, which lists the questions to ask oneself when reading a news article or a study, e.g., how large is the test group? do the people in the group represent normal people? how long is the study? who is financing it? is it high carb + high fat? etc.
It would help people weed out bad articles/studies quickly.


#5

The way I think about that is how do they make foie gras - fatty goose liver? By force feeding the goose grains. A type 2 diabetic gets fatty liver b/c of the raised insulin in their bodies and insulin is raised by sugar - carbs. Just my thinking on the matter.


(Carol O'Carroll) #6

Including me. 1 year in Fatty Liver gone.


(Lee Jones) #7

Brilliant news, well done Carolo :clap:t3:

I was diagnosed with NAFLD around 10 years ago and amazingly, or not as we in the know now know, was advised to eat a low fat diet and eat more starchy Carbs!

Looking back the most annoying thing, and one that could have saved me from T2 was that I wasn’t even told that NAFLD was a marker for future diabetes.

Bastards!


(Chele Eva Armstrong) #8

What do you feel was the best thing you did for yourself on the keto diet to rid you of a fatty liver?
Thanks!


(Carol O'Carroll) #9

I think concentrating on lowering insulin so that the liver can clear out the stores was key.

Just doing keto was probably the best thing. I did cut down to 20-30gms whole carbs, made sure I ate good fats - butter, coconut, etc. Cutting starches made a bigger difference to me as it cut the sugar/insulin swings. It stopped the hypos pretty quickly.

I don’t eat any packaged food, just ingredients and cut my takeaway to non deep fried options, mainly to control the fats.
I stopped drinking alcohol too. Didn’t taste good so wasn’t a big problem, helped to give it a rest as well.

Cutting out added sugars helped a bit (I tried), but not as much as going Keto.

Trusting it would work.
Getting your head into doing it and being different. You’ve done the research now you need to keep calm and keto on.


(Consensus is Politics) #10

I might be too cynical, but if they gave you all the information how could they later treat your diabetes? Big pharma has way too much influence in what doctors do. Incentives to write scripts that aren’t necessary. But how to prove it? Who’s most likely to be believed? A doctor with more doctors backing him up? Or me, with what sounds like conspiracy theory.:face_with_raised_eyebrow:


#11

Hey @Robert_Johnson your “conspiracy theory” of pharma malfeasance has much more proof than their vaunted BS lipid theory.


(Brian) #12

Studies like this can be very misleading.

This give the idea that fats are evil. They’re not.

If you want to eat a diet high in fats and be healthy, the carbs and sugars have to go. That’s what the LCHF thing is about. And it’s healthy for a lot of people. What’s NOT healthy is if they eat the large quantities of fat AND continue to eat the carbs and sugar. That’s the typical American diet and a recipe for disaster.

Unfortunately, when these types of studies get published, they seldom do them in any context other than the standard American diet… which is high carb. The keto group is in an entirely different context and in this group, high fats (at least of good quality), are a good thing.

Don’t be afraid of going keto. Just if you’re gonna do it, do it all the way, not half way.

:slight_smile:


#13

Hi Carol, Can you pls share?.. Had you been diagnosed with a fatty liver (non alcohol)? I ask because I was just diagnosed with this two days ago. Yet three weeks ago I began Keto and now my Dr says I must go onto a low fat diet for my liver. I also heard a fatty liver cannot properly process fats. Clearly I do not want to do any further damage and want to turn this around. So now I’m looking for wise guidance. Thank you!


(Carol O'Carroll) #14

I’m reasonably sure it fixed me.
But, here are some studies that have looked at it more closely.

http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(18)30054-8


(Carol O'Carroll) #15

Yes, I had been diagnosed with NAFLD. Yes, the fatty liver has a harder time doing anything, but it takes very little time on low carb to turn that around. Can you talk to another doctor? Or show your doc some of the research I’ve posted?


(Carol O'Carroll) #16

(Don) #17

I was diagnosed with NAFL back in October. My liver was so inflamed it was actually causing pressure under my right lower rib cage and making everything itch if you can imagine that. Had an ultrasound and let’s just say that my liver was huge. I started keto in January and just last week I realized my discomfort (if you can call it that) was completely gone. I go back to the doctor at the beginning of April and we will check blood work to include liver enzymes. But I expect everything will at the very least be trending better if not completely well.

Low sugar/carb diets cure NAFL disease not low fat. If your doctor doesn’t understand that…get a different doctor. It’s fairly simple biology. And this is coming from a guy that didn’t do well in biology in college. Hope you find a treatment that can help you out.


#18

Thanks Don, Looking forward to hearing your results in April and hope they’re excellent! I fully agree that a restricted low carb diet benefits the liver. However, adding high-fat to a fatty liver diet is a different matter. I’ve yet to read evidence showing the such comparatively favorable benefits of high-fat for the liver. I am trying to get clear on this aspect and am quite sincere in saying I welcome & appreciate literature on high fat and it’s benefits to the liver. Cheers.


(Rob) #19

People are obviously reversing their NAFLD on keto. For those doing keto, it is an inevitability that they have a high fat diet since it is the only sensible way to achieve the requisite energy to live when you’ve slashed your carb intake. Protein cannot healthily take up the slack so there no other choices. Everyday people prove that HF is not deleterious to their health and improves CV conditions, cancer, kidney disease, etc. If you are still caught up on the HF component then you probably aren’t ready for keto so check out other approaches to NAFLD.

You are SOL if you want to wait for someone to fund a decent LCHF RCT for NAFLD. Based on the obvious success of people doing LCHF either do it or don’t but don’t expect get a nice cozy NIH pat on the back to proceed. There are probably other people who have solutions. You could massively calorie restrict and never make up the lost energy and maybe fix your liver but would cause all kinds of other long-term problems (reduced BMR, stress on multiple organs etc.). You could try keto light/paleo, go vegan and see what happens.


(Jeannie Oliver) #20

Yato, you may not need another reference after all the good ones others have posted here, but this opened my eyes, from Dr. Jason Fung’s blog on IDMprogram.com.

https://idmprogram.com/fatty-liver-t2d-25/

I am doing keto primarily to heal my NAFLD. The other benefits–slimmer body, better skin, more energy, and so on–are a bonus.