How Does Salt Affect The Liver In A Healthy Individual With A Very High Protein Diet?
Let's first talk a bit about liver on high protein diet, Intake of excessive protein requires similar rate of protein metabolism. As the rate of protein metabolism increases, concentration of urea in blood also increases. Urea being the end product of protein metabolism! Along with urea other intermediates of protein metabolism such as ammonia also rises in blood stream. Increased urea and other intermediates such as ammonia after consuming protein rich diet increases osmolarity of blood. Effect of salt on healthy liver or in hypernatremic conditions is still under research. But previous studies have shown that excessive salt consumption can have detrimental consequences on liver. However normal levels of salt consumption has no negative impact on liver. Sodium intake beyond normal values can cause damage to liver. It involves higher rate of cell death, reduced cell proliferation, collagen deposition, all of which leads fibrosis of liver. Individual with protein rich diet shows increased osmolarity. Salt doesn't have direct effect on liver. But when salt is added to the hyperosmolar plasma, blood pressure increases. Increased blood pressure can harm the liver. Below given research links hypernatremia and liver damage, Continue reading >>
Does Ketosis (from A Fat-rich Diet) Affect Body Temperature?
One finds a minor increase in metabolism early in ketosis, especially so when consuming MCTs. MCTs are converted into ketone bodies in their first pass through the liver. Humans do not store those well and metabolize them fairly quickly. Something similar happens with consumed ethanol. Ask yourself why metabolism decreases after dieting. How does the hypothalamus detect food shortage? It can’t do so from circulating ketone bodies or free fatty acids. Those are maintained from fat stores even when one is starving. It does that through glucose and insulin levels. On a strict ketogenic diet, I was found to have both low TSH and low T4. Normally, if T4 is low, TSH is raised to restore the required metabolism. Low T4 results in decreased basal metabolism. My condition was called central hypothyroidism and commonly seen only in patients who have suffered major disease or trauma. It reversed on restoration of a more normal diet. A true ketogenic diet is rather extreme in that it requires restriction of protein as well as carbs. Roughly half of ingested protein becomes glucose on its first pass through the liver. Continue reading >>
Does Ketosis Affect Caffeine Sensitivity?
Caffeine might cause disturbance in glucose metabolism, which could affect ketosis, although only anecdotal evidence of this exists. Insulin resistance, which is the inability of cells to respond to and absorb glucose, can raise glucose levels and cause weight gain. Ketosis decreases insulin resistance by improving insulin sensitivity, which is the the ability of cells to absorb glucose which ultimately help in weight loss. Caffeine might increase insulin resistance. Increase in insulin resistance makes losing weight difficult. It also increase the chance of having type 2 diabetes. Although caffeine might raise glucose levels after eating a meal high in carbohydrates, it's unclear that this effect occurs after a low-carbohydrate meal such as those eaten by low-carbohydrates dieters. It's also unclear whether blood glucose would rise high enough to keep a low-carbohydrates dieter out of ketosis. Continue reading >>
How Does Intermittent Fasting Work? Is It Effective?
Think hanging out with friends and being on a diet are mutually exclusive? You obviously haven’t tried Intermittent Fasting (IF). There’s no debating that eating and social situations go hand in hand. Food brings people together. As we get older, hanging out with friends becomes more and more infrequent. Don’t be that guy that can’t hang out because “I’m on a diet”. Dieting is hard enough in and of itself, don’t deny yourself a life too. I’m not advocating throwing caution to the wind and going H.A.M. every day. I’m just saying there is a better way to diet. A way I found out waaayyy too late. Enter Intermittent Fasting. In total disclosure, I didn’t hear about Intermittent Fasting until a few years ago and immediately dismissed it because “I need to eat 6-7 small meals a day or I’d lose my gainz.” About the same time Cory Gregory came out with his Anabolic Fasting program – combining the Anabolic Diet with Intermittent Fasting. Ok, if Cory does it, color me interested. But first, I had a question… WHAT THE HELL IS IF? Intermittent Fasting (IF) simply is having a timed window of eating and fasting. Have you ever slept through the whole night without eating? That is more or less IF on a micro scale. IF, regardless of method, is fasting for a minimum of 16 hours and using the rest of the day to eat. The fasting is typically done overnight so a bulk of the fast is while you’re sleeping. On the face of it, IF seems like hell. Not eating for 16 hours? Absolutely bananas. I’ll admit it’s a paradigm shift, especially if you think like I do, but the immediate benefits far outweigh the short term mental hurdle. BENEFITS OF IF To fast for 16 hours there needs to be substantial benefits, IF has them in spades. I went ahead and organized them b Continue reading >>
How Does Drinking Affect The Liver?
Effect of alcohol drinking: 1. Heart and Circulation - Alcohol can cause high blood pressure (hypertension). Alcohol increase chance of heart attach or stroke very much. Alcohol also weakens hear muscles which affect blood circulation in whole body and which can affect the lungs, liver, brain and other body parts. Alcohol is the main cause of Irregular heart beat. 2. Effect on liver - Drinking too much alcohol cause fat deposits to develop in the liver. With continued excessive drinking, the liver may become inflamed, causing alchohoic hepatitis, which can result in liver failure and death. Excessive alcohol can permanently scar and damage the liver, resulting in liver cirrhosis and an increase risk of liver cancer. 3. Effect on stomach - Alcohol drinking can lead to stomach ulcers, internal bleeding and cancer. Alcohol irritate the stomach which cause vomiting and it stops your gag reflax from working properly that's why you can choke, or inhale your own vomiting into your lungs. 4. Effect on Brain - Alcohol interferes with the brain's communication pathways, and can affect the way the brain looks and works. Heavy drinking can cause blackouts, memory loss and anxiety. Long term heavy drinking can result in parmanent brain damage and other mental health problems. These disruptions can change moods and behaviour, and make it harder to think clearly and move with coordination. And main thing is alcohol make your brain addicted to it. 5. Effect on central nervous system - After entering into the body alcohol first affects your central nerverous system. Slurred speech is one of the first sign that shows that you drank to much alcohol. Alcohol can reduce communication between your brain and your body. This makes coordination more difficult and this affect balancing body. 6. Continue reading >>
Ketosis And Fatty Liver
Fatty liver is usually associated with alcohol abuse, but even people who don't drink can develop nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, or NAFLD. NAFLD includes asymptomatic steatosis, meaning simple fatty liver, which can progress to steatohepatitis, meaning inflamed fatty liver. Later, the disease can cause fibrosis, or scarring, and ultimately cirrhosis, which is permanent. Alcoholic fatty liver can only be treated by abstaining from alcohol in the early stages of the disease. But, because NAFLD is likely diet-related, it might be reversible by substantially reducing carbohydrate intake by means of a ketogenic diet. Video of the Day NAFLD is associated with obesity -- especially abdominal, insulin resistance, elevated blood sugar, inflammation and high serum triglycerides. These are all signs of metabolic syndrome, considered the precurser to Type 2 diabetes. When the body cannot use sugar properly, some of it is converted to fat -- triglycerides -- by the liver, where it can accumulate. A 2009 study conducted at the Center for Human Nutrition and Atkins Center of Excellence in Obesity Medicine found that excess liver fat is probably the major culprit behind the health issues often associated with obesity. The Ketogenic Diet The ketogenic diet is a high-protein, high-fat, carbohydrate-restricted diet usually used for weight loss. Reducing or eliminating dietary carbohydrate forces the body to rely on stored fat for energy. However, the body metabolizes fat differently in the absence of carbohydrates, resulting in a condition called ketosis. Incompletely metabolized fat forms molecules called ketones, which accumulate in the blood and urine. Ketones have limited value as an energy source in the absence of carbohydrate, mainly for the brain, but most are excreted in the ur Continue reading >>
How Does Distance Running Affect The Liver?
To my knowledge there is no specific pathobiology associated with distance running in the liver. Several physiological changes are possible: Changes in glycogen stores (probably a small increase). Increased insulin sensitivity, although this is not liver-specific. Changes in liver fat handling, although these have not been examined specifically in livers of patients who are distance runners. One area in which distance running can cause severe gut disease is ischemic colitis, in which patients outstrip their blood supply via supply/demand imbalance. In theory, such patients may also develop ischemic hepatitis (shock liver); however, I have not observed this phenomenon. Continue reading >>
What Is It Like To Go On A Ketogenic Diet?
It's do-able. Some people love it and some people hate it. Personally, I find that nutritional ketosis is almost ideal for me, whereas "normal" eating with lots of carbs in my diet leads to feelings of non-satiety, drowsiness, mood swings, insulin spikes, bloating, and sometimes nausea. A ketogenic diet consists of 70-80% calories from fat, 15-25% calories from protein, and 0-5% calories from net carbohydrates (carbs). You must restrict your daily net carbs to 20-40g daily. (total grams carbs) - (grams fiber) = (net grams carbs) Your transition period depends on a few factors: how strictly you limit your carbohydrate intake, how much energy you expend day-to-day, and how much energy in the form of glucose and glycogen you have stored in your body currently. My transition period takes 3 days. Day 1: This is an easy day. Your blood is still filled with circulating glucose, and any deficit will be taken from the glycogen in your liver to be converted to glucose. You may feel hunger pangs by the afternoon, and a small dip in insulin, which will feel normal to you because this is what happens every day on a normal diet and you are used to it. Day 2: This is an easy day, too. Your body is happily pulling glycogen from your liver, converting it to glucose, and all is well. Any small amount of carbs that you consume are burned away, nothing is being stored. You may feel the typical afternoon slowdown and hunger, as on day 1. Day 3: Hard day. Your body has been (or is nearly) depleted of glucose and glycogen. The small amount of carbs that you consume are not enough to fuel your brain. You have a feeling of satiety from all the fat you are consuming, but you may feel achy, have headaches, and feel sluggish. Your body is alerting you to the lack of glucose and glycogen. It will t Continue reading >>
Keto: The Best Fatty Liver Diet
Fatty liver disease is exactly what the name suggests – a disease characterized by the build up of fat in the liver. There are two main types of fatty liver disease: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease Alcoholic fatty liver disease (also called alcoholic steatohepatitis) Both types of fatty liver disease are diagnosed when fat makes up at least 10% of the liver, but the cause of the fat build up is different for each type. The cause of alcoholic fatty liver disease is obvious. The amount of alcohol it takes to cause fatty build up in the liver, however, is not so obvious. The Liver Foundation suggests consuming no more than 14 drinks a week for men and 7 drinks a week for women. Anything more than may cause fat to build up in the liver. The treatment for alcoholic fatty liver disease is simple enough — stop drinking alcohol. Studies confirm that cessation of alcohol consumption can reverse alcoholic fatty liver disease. However, the cause and treatment of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease are not as obvious. This is because many different factors (other than alcohol) can cause fat to build up in the liver. The Truth About Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease affects 20-30% of adult populations in developed countries, but the mechanisms underlying its cause are incompletely understood. We can, however, take some clues from other common diseases to figure out why this happens. In epidemiological studies including people with type 2 diabetes, 62 to 69% of them also had nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Another study found that 50% of patients with dyslipidemia (abnormally elevated cholesterol levels) had nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Obesity, metabolic syndrome, and heart disease are also closely linked with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease Continue reading >>
Is Dietary Ketosis Harmful To The Liver?
The mild dietary ketosis, such as that which is experienced during the Weight Loss phase of the Lean for Life program, is not harmful to individuals with a normal, healthy, functioning liver. Here is some information about ketosis that may help you to understand its role in weight loss: The carbohydrates you eat are converted to glucose, which is the body’s primary source of energy. Whenever your intake of carbohydrates is limited to a certain range, for a long enough period of time, you’ll reach a point where your body draws on its alternate energy system, fat stores, for fuel. This means your body burns fat and turns it into a source of fuel called ketones. (Ketones are produced whenever body fat is burned.) When you burn a larger amount of fat than is immediately needed for energy, the excess ketones are discarded in the urine. Being in ketosis means your body has burned a large amount of fat in response to the fact that it didn’t have sufficient glucose available for energy needs. Dietary ketosis is among the most misunderstood concepts in nutrition because it is often confused with ketoacidosis, which is a life-threatening condition most often associated with uncontrolled insulin-deficient Type 1 diabetes. In the Type 1 diabetic, the absence of insulin leads to a toxic build-up of blood glucose and an extreme break-down of fat and muscle tissue. This condition doesn’t occur in individuals who have even a small amount of insulin, whether from natural production or artificially administered. Dietary ketosis, however, is a natural adjustment to the body’s reduced intake of carbohydrates as the body shifts its primary source of energy from carbohydrates to stored fat. The presence of insulin keeps ketone production in check so that a mild, beneficial ketosis Continue reading >>
