Natural remedies for Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver

Hey guys,

So, I went in for a "normal" checkup and the doctor said I have markers of metabolic syndrome (high blood pressure, high cholesterol) and a non alcoholic fatty liver. My blood sugar was low because I eat a ketogenic diet/high fat-low carb regularly with carb backloads. I've always carried weight around my mid-section and he said the bloating I get there and some dry patches of skin between fingers and toes are the sign of the fatty liver in addition to the lab tests they ran.

Does anyone have any thoughts here? CS? Milk Thistle? Dietary change? Just wondering if there are steps I can take since I already eat low carb/gluten free/healthy fats and exercise.

Thanks in advance.

hadrion wrote:Hey guys,

So, I went in for a "normal" checkup and the doctor said I have markers of metabolic syndrome (high blood pressure, high cholesterol) and a non alcoholic fatty liver. My blood sugar was low because I eat a ketogenic diet/high fat-low carb regularly with carb backloads. I've always carried weight around my mid-section and he said the bloating I get there and some dry patches of skin between fingers and toes are the sign of the fatty liver in addition to the lab tests they ran.

Does anyone have any thoughts here? CS? Milk Thistle? Dietary change? Just wondering if there are steps I can take since I already eat low carb/gluten free/healthy fats and exercise.

Thanks in advance.

Choline

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3601486/

http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/55/7/2015.full

Thanks Yaer. It's crazy because I eat a lot of whole eggs so I should be high-ish in choline. I'll definitely make sure I keep that up. I wonder if putting myself in ketosis for so long may have stirred this up in my blood tests. I feel fine. A little surprised at this prognosis.

hadrion, this may not be a popular post, because I know CS like berberine, but...I don't think it's very good for our livers. Or at least, maybe not for people like you and me who have a predisposition (for whatever reason) towards metabolic syndrome.

I took berberine for a little while for blood sugar. It seemed to work for blood sugar control. But I accidentally doubled the dose...two caps instead of one. After about a week I started getting really nauseous pretty much all the time but especially. Lost my appetite. Figured it was the berberine but maybe I was "detoxing" and it would pass. It didn't. After another week I started doing research. Turns out berberine *can* be bad for your liver, especially if taken at high doses or long term. Supposedly you're supposed to cycle it, too...three months on and then some time off (can't remember how much). If I recall correctly I reduced dose and the nausea went away, but I never got over being paranoid about my liver. After I reduced the dose it didn't seem to work so well for my blood sugar so I just kind of stopped it.

Dunno if you know that or not, or if you're cycling it or what. Throwing it out there as food for thought in case you don't. I decided not to take it any more because I've given my liver a beating already throughout its poor life and I don't want to add to it. I'm sure berberine works for blood sugar and probably is fine for most people, but I don't think it's good for me. I've read your posts and you and I seem to have some similar tendencies/problems. Might not be good for you, either.

Not sure that berberine would exacerbate NAFLD per this study below.

http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2013/308134/

I would suggest looking at your ferritin (iron storage levels).

You might have iron overload. All of those supplements you're taking are good for NAFLD.

So one missing link maybe an iron overload issue.

whodathunkit - Thanks for the thoughts. I haven't cycled it although I do wonder why I should continue it when I'm eating high fat/low carb since my blood sugar issues are controlled by diet. I am predisposed to metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance. We are alike in that sense. It sucks. I'm thinking of ditching the carb backloads and just staying in ketosis long term since I feel great eating high good fats/low carb. It's certainly changed my appetite levels tremendously.

CS-I'll check into ferritin levels and iron overload. Like I said, I feel great. But I have stubborn fat around my mid-section that just doesn't go anywhere and I do bloat out sometimes like under my breastbone. I can put on muscle better than most teenagers. I have been stressed out a lot this past year losing my Mom suddenly so I'm not entirely sure if that hasn't had some physical toll on me. I know it's been a mental one. Add to that massive career activity and buying and moving into a new house in the next couple of months and you get the picture.

hadrion wrote:whodathunkit - Thanks for the thoughts. I haven't cycled it although I do wonder why I should continue it when I'm eating high fat/low carb since my blood sugar issues are controlled by diet. I am predisposed to metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance. We are alike in that sense. It sucks. I'm thinking of ditching the carb backloads and just staying in ketosis long term since I feel great eating high good fats/low carb. It's certainly changed my appetite levels tremendously.

CS-I'll check into ferritin levels and iron overload. Like I said, I feel great. But I have stubborn fat around my mid-section that just doesn't go anywhere and I do bloat out sometimes like under my breastbone. I can put on muscle better than most teenagers. I have been stressed out a lot this past year losing my Mom suddenly so I'm not entirely sure if that hasn't had some physical toll on me. I know it's been a mental one. Add to that massive career activity and buying and moving into a new house in the next couple of months and you get the picture.

I found Thiamine, Magnesium and copper to be the biggest factors in insulin resistance...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23715873

This is v. imp for u: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.20380/abstract

What did the Doctor suggest?

Odysseus wrote:What did the Doctor suggest?

Low fat, high fiber, diet and exercise. He wants to put me on blood pressure meds & a statin.

hadrion wrote:Low fat, high fiber, diet and exercise. He wants to put me on blood pressure meds & a statin.

Huh. You have signs of liver disease and he wants to put you on a statin.   

Are you going to switch doctors?

hadrion wrote:

Odysseus wrote:What did the Doctor suggest?

Low fat, high fiber, diet and exercise. He wants to put me on blood pressure meds & a statin.

That advice from the doctor is the standard incorrect - a prelude to more ill health.

Hadrion, how is your gut health?  Might be worth checking out some articles from the site I posted the other day:  http://syontix.com/nonalcoholic-fatty-liver-disease-endotoxemia-and-probiotics/

I would never take the prescriptions he gave me. And he prescribed exercise to someone who exercises regularly and can lift the gym over my head all natural. I didn't go see him because I was sick. It was a life insurance physical/check up. I feel great. Have felt great for years.

I know I have insulin resistance. I've had it forever and I have to work 4x as hard in the gym and in the kitchen to lose a pound of fat than the normal guy. Gut health is always been a battle for me, but I avoid gluten, grains, sugar and take probiotics, use Lugols, Coconut Oil, etc. And I avoid HFCS like the plague.

I'm going to get another blood test from a doctor who specializes in this field, recommends the diet I'm on and get his take on it.

hadrion, you might also want to give Danny Roddy a read, if you haven't already. Not necessarily for diet recommendations but just to give you food for thought. I found out some interesting things from his books about free fatty acids and insulin resistance/type II diabetes. I now no longer think that high fat is the way to go, although definitely not low fat, and definitely not unsaturated. I still drink unhomogenized whole milk, eat butter, cheese, etc., but watch my quantities. Also I don't think low carb is any good, but it's the kind of carbs (starch is bad for us insulin resistant types, fruit is okay, etc.).

I don't know what "high fat" means for you since it's a relative term. My mother thinks high fat is a pat of butter. For me, high fat might be using half a stick of butter. Just for example. LOL But the amount of fat in your diet is worth thinking about, since, contra some paleo/low carb conventional wisdom, it does seem to matter.

Hadrion,

Sorry I'm getting in a little bit late on this.

But I'd second the recommendations for adequate choline. Quality egg yolk is actually a one-two punch here, since you're getting cholesterol from this source as well. As a secondary thing, I'd try to get more methionine, perhaps as selenomethionine since you're getting the addition of selenium there. Along with this get a bunch of vitamin E in a full spectrum of the isomers, like with Tocosorb.

I'd add emphasis to try and avoid too much PUFA in the diet, which is easy to overdo on a keto diet, what with all of the nuts/nut butters and meat found in this diet. You already know that any types of hydrogenated plant oils (soy, canola, cottonseed, corn) should be totally avoided. Try to balance your omega-6 to omega-3 at about a 1.4:1 or 1.3:1. The tool over at SELF Nutrition Data has the omega content of the majority of foods and you can use this to track what you're getting through your own diet. I do this and control what I can with food selection, and to lower the ratio I'll supplement with an omega-3 rich oil.

But I know you're already spot on with your exercise so the one thing I'd say is I might not go total keto. I'm not sure exactly how you've been handling your carb intake the past several months, but have you ever tried limiting carbohydrate to the 1-2 hours post-workout? I know that this doesn't allow you to go "full" keto so it can be a bit up-and-down for the first part of the day but I think it helps get around the bad of carb while giving some of the good.

I'm right here with you though, man. Naturally prone to insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. History of it coming at me from both sides of the fam. If I'm not working out intensely 5 or 6 days of the week, virtually any carb in the diet has dramatic effects on my blood sugar and I'm carrying weight in the midsection at almost all times. The only time I've ever gotten to low enough bodyfat (which gets ridiculous when you hold onto belly fat) has been when I went zero carb with circuit training and HIIT. Yeah, got abs but it also nearly killed me haha. Navigating life with this proclivity for blood sugar problems and central fat isn't easy. So far, about the best things I've found which are also SUSTAINABLE have been carb resistriction (but not elimination), timing carb for post workout window, and intermittent fasting. I found a true keto diet was not sustainable. The cyclic carb thing is okay, but it takes a lot of discipline and I found that I hated the way I'd feel after the carb up. It felt great at first but it ended up ruining my weekends.

https://www.swansonvitamins.com/swanson-premium-lecithin-granules-non-gmo-3-lb-1362-grams-granules

http://www.amazon.com/Pure-Betaine-Trimethylglycine-Powder-1000G/dp/B006IFGQX6

4039 wrote:http://www.amazon.com/Pure-Betaine-Trimethylglycine-Powder-1000G/dp/B006IFGQX6

FWIW, trimethylglycine (TMG) can give you the runs pretty quickly.  If you don't need digestive support just be careful with that one if you decide to try it.  It's a great methyl donor and I like the way it makes me feel, but can't take it because it gives me the poops so quickly.

AS54 wrote:I found a true keto diet was not sustainable.

I'm beginning to really believe that carb restriction can cause or exacerbate insulin resistance.   It's like after a bout or two with ketosis your body forgets what to do with carbs or something.  My biochemistry has never been the same since my first bout with Atkins, for example.   I lost a bunch of weight really quickly, but piled it all on again when I went back to eating carbs, and it seems like I haven't been able to lose weight as easily ever since.   Before that I would gain a few pounds, but if I exercised and ate right, it would come off pretty easily.   But after Atkins it just kept getting tougher and tougher.

Thanks for the thoughts guys. I appreciate all of them. I really just want to get my blood re-tested and see what they find.

AS54 - I may switch to backloading, but was sticking with keto to try to get the mid-section fat loss I can't seem to get. My power lifting 5-3-1 was just getting me bigger above my waist and my abdomen was getting bigger/thicker probably from all the squats and deadlifts. I just pack on muscle really easy. I think all the years of Ecklonia Cava Extract usage has a lot to do with that as well as D3. What I was doing was Carb Nite and it was great for maintaining with slow fat loss, but the actual Carb Nite was unpleasant. I like the way I feel low carb/high fat. And by that I mean I'm around 75-80% fat and I keep my net carbs under 30g's a day. Could very well be too much nuts/Omega 6 causing an imbalance. Your post made me realize I dropped Tocosorb months ago when I ran out and never reordered. I wonder if it's as simple as that?

Gonna get another blood test done and get a private consult done with CS to review.