 Hello everyone, today we are talking about fatty liver. Now, I'm Dr. Ahmed Ergin, I'm an anachronologist, a diabetes expert, and a metabolism expert, and guess what? I see fatty liver probably 10 times a day in my clinic. Now, I need to tell you something, this is a diabetes channel. Now, in a diabetes channel, we have to talk about fatty liver because fatty liver even develops before you even become diabetic. Now, if you're diabetic, there's a very good chance that you have fatty liver as well. So why do we care about fatty liver, right? Well, let's talk about it. All right, guys, welcome back. So fatty liver, extremely important, the most common reason for cirrhosis in the United States is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. So if you thought that alcohol was a reason for cirrhosis, babe, you're wrong. You're wrong because that's not the case. Well, if you think about it, 70% of American population is overweight, 30 to 40% are obese, and fatty liver is pretty much the end result of that. Now, I want to rephrase that, not every obese person will have fatty liver. You have to have some genetic predisposition, and you have to have some insulin resistance that can lead to that. So basically, what happens is in a quick nutshell, too much fatty acids that are spilling over from the fat cells are going right to the liver. So the liver starts to say, okay, well, I need to do something about these fatty acids. So your cells are trying to burn the fatty acids, and while you're burning the fatty acids, the liver's trying to get the mitochondria going, the mitochondria goes, and then what ends up happening, the mitochondria says, dude, you know, I need a break, and then the mitochondria doesn't get a break. And mitochondria, when it works, there are a lot of byproducts, things like a mitochondria like a factory. If you have a factory that works 24-7, there's a lot of waste going on, and you don't give anybody any break, they're gonna leave you, or your factory will be destroyed. So that's why ends up happening. Too much fatty acids, too much fatty acid oxidation going on, your mitochondria fails, your endoplasmic reticulum fails. These are the organelles in the cells that actually operate behind the scenes. Now, what happens eventually is those fatty acids start gathering together, and then they get bigger, and then bigger, and then bigger, and then your cells burst. When the cells burst, there's something called AST, ALT. These are the enzymes, guys, that you see on your CMP or complete metabolic profile. Now, by the way, if you liked the video so far, give it a thumbs up, subscribe, and share this video. I'm sure some people will appreciate it. All right, so guys, AST and LAT, if you look at your CMP, and I'm not saying that to be your own doctor, but if you're looking at your blood work, if you're seeing your ALT is high, typically higher than AST, that means that you have some liver damage going on. Now, don't panic, don't panic, because the levels of the AST, ALT matters. So if you have an ALT of 3,000, yeah, panic. Go to ER right now. But if your ALT is like less than 100, your ALT is a little higher than AST. Your normal levels are up to 30 to 40. But if you are really like, you know, maybe two times the elevate, two to three times upper limit of normal, that means that there is some damage going on. Nothing to freak out right now, but to be concerned about. So what do you do? Number one, you need to find out if you're insulin resistant. How do you know you're insulin resistant? There are basic rules. You don't even have to go to the doctor. All you need is a tape measure. So you're just going to check your waistline and see how big you are. You're going to look at your cholesterol profile and see what your triglyceride levels are, see what your HDL levels are. So if you look at the mirror and you don't like the way your belly looks, you probably have insulin resistance. If you have high triglycerides and low HDL, yeah, you probably have insulin resistance. If you have elevated blood pressure, you probably have insulin resistance. And again, these are generally a combination of things that it doesn't necessarily mean that you just have one problem that doesn't make you insulin resistant. But typically that's why we call it a syndrome that you have multiple problems that are leading to one final result. And that's typically diabetes. So diabetes is only pretty much the end result. Diabetes just tells you that your blood sugars are high. So if your doctor is telling you your blood sugar is high, he's probably or she's probably trying to tell you that you are pretty much at the end of the road. Now, don't panic, you're not dying it. But by the time your blood sugar is high, you already probably have fat delivery and insulin resistance. Is it reversible? Absolutely. Yes, you can reverse it right now. Even if you have diabetes, you can reverse it. You can reverse anything. But you have to be really determined. Now, let's talk about how you do that, right? All right, let's do that. So guys, basically, you need to put good stuff in your diet and eliminate the bad stuff. Now, what is the best stuff? What do we need to really get rid of from our diet? Well, number one is saturated fatty acids. Saturated fatty acids are found in a lot of things, but mostly animal products. Now, coconut oil and butter is saturated fatty acids too. Although a lot of people say that coconut oil may be good for you, but data is mixed there. So, but the animal fat like the lard, the butter and stuff like that. And you will find a lot of people will say that that's good for you. Well, there is nothing like especially when it comes to animal products that absolutely good or absolutely bad for you. Like in everything you just have to have, of course, I'm not saying don't eat any saturated fat at all. You just have to keep it limited because saturated fatty acids, unfortunately, does not tell so good things to your liver. It just tells your liver to store the fat. And that's why saturated fatty acids are not so good when it comes to fatty liver. Saturated fatty acids also prevent the LDL, the bad cholesterol, to be picked up and eliminated, turn into bile by the liver as well. So saturated fatty acids all around are bad for you, increasing your LDL, causing fatty liver. So try to limit your exposure to them. Again, especially the worst ones, like if you're eating grass fat meat, that's fine. But if you are eating especially processed stuff like the sausage, the bacon and stuff like that, ooh, I'm nauseous already. Don't do that. So anyways, trans fats, trans fats are actually even worse than saturated fatty acids. They're typically found in like the store sold bakery products. Anything that's in a package is probably going to have trans fats. And here's why. Trans fats are called trans fats. They don't have a gender problem, but they have an identity problem. And the problem is, you know, these companies are trying to use the oil and they need to keep the oil solid, right? So to make the oil solid, they hydrogenate them and they transfer them to something else. And again, another rule of thumb, if you see a fat that is solid in room temperature, that's not good for you. Okay. So and if you try to make a fat that's liquid in room temperature and try to turn it into a solid fat by transing them, then that's not good for you either. So and those fats are basically are going to your liver that they don't even belong because trans fats are human made. So when they go to your body, they don't even know where to go. They just get stuck in your liver and your liver will accumulate those fats. And then like we said, the soul cells will burst and then that's going to cause a lot of spill or destruction. And the problem with the body is once the inflammation starts as a chaos, and then inflammation in other parts of your body, especially with insulin resistance and the fatty acids, they increase the formation of reactive oxygen species. And those species are not very good species. They will damage anything in front of their way. You know, we produce actually reactive oxygen species for a reason. We actually, they are helpful to a certain point, but then when there's too much of them, it becomes destructive to your own tissue. So you need to keep the reactive oxygen species low and you need to have antioxidants in your system to eliminate the reactive oxygen species. That's why you hear all the time, you know, this food has antioxidant, this food has antioxidant, eat this, eat that because it's antioxidant. And that's very true. Antioxidants will keep the inflammation down and all the trans fats, saturated fats, processed fats or meats, they all increase that reactive oxygen species. So rule number one, eliminate the bad, bad stuff and incorporate the good stuff with antioxidant features. So what are the antioxidants? You're good old vegetables and fruits. Okay. So if you're diabetic and you're trying to avoid fruits because it spikes your blood sugar, again, you have to have a holistic approach. You have to understand the whole spectrum here. So first of all, the fruits are not necessarily too high in sugar, unless you eat a lot of them, right? So to get the benefit of a, of a food, you don't necessarily have to eat a lot of them. You can have a handful of nuts a day. You can have two cups of fruit a day, two to three cups of fruit a day is a diabetic. Those things will give you a tremendous benefit. So you don't need to grease on fruit all day long thinking that you're going to live longer than you're going to really, because your body eventually will say, you know what, you know, this is too much. I'm going to have to do something with all this sugar because, you know, the foods come in antioxidants, sugar all together. And there's a purpose for it, right? So you're eating something, you have to get multiple benefits from it, but too much of it is not going to be good for you. So again, vegetables and fruits are good. They're going to help you, especially the greens, especially cruciferous vegetables like the broccoli, cauliflower and so forth. So those are the vegetables and fruits we talked about. Now omega three fatty acids, again, omega three fatty acids are great because they are antioxidant as well, but also they tell your liver how to get rid of fat. So that's very important. So when you have omega three fatty acids in your system, especially the EPA, not so much DHA, but the EPA that comes from the fish especially and the nuts are amazing to help you eliminate the fatty liver. Now, choline is another important thing. It helps to export the fat from your liver and help the liver burn the fat better. And the choline is again found in a lot of vegetables and fruits, the meats, it is hard to run out of choline is in a lot of good foods. And I say meats, you know, like, of course, I'm not saying going saturated fat, but, you know, lean cuts of meats are definitely good. Low fat dairy will help you to find choline in there as well. And, and then eggs, the egg yolks actually not been excessively, but if you're having one or two egg yolk a day, that may be okay as well. So vitamin E is also studied widely to help with the fatty liver. Again, if you're eating good, if you're eating healthy, I don't think you will have a deficiency of it. But sometimes an extra boost of antioxidants such as vitamin E can be helpful. And occasionally, though, some studies say that, you know, if you have cardiovascular disease, if you, if you're on a anticoagulant, like a warfarin and stuff like that, it may increase the tendency for bleeding a little bit. So you have to be careful when it comes to that if you're taking like 1000 or more units. But if you are taking maybe, you know, 300, 400 units of vitamin E should not be a problem. But again, you know, anything I say make sure you discuss with your physician as well, especially if you have cardiovascular disease. If you don't have any cardiovascular disease, you just have some fatty liver, some insulin resistance, go for vitamin E. I don't think that should be a problem. Before we conclude this video, I want to mention a few other things as well. So there are some anecdotal evidence, not foolproof evidence, but there's some evidence out there that says the coffee, especially decaf coffee can actually help with the fatty liver. The non fat dairy definitely can help with the choline content in it, I believe. Garlic can help with it. Green tea, olive oil, avocados, like we always say, those are all helpful for your liver to get rid of the fat and eliminate the fatty liver. So guys, thank you very much for watching. And like I said, please subscribe, share this video and give it a thumbs up. All right, thank you for watching. And I want you to be more informed and more educated. So to do that, go ahead and watch this next video right here.