Liver disease is rapidly becoming a major killer in our society. There is a general belief that alcohol abuse is the principal cause of liver disease, but this is far from the truth. From our experience of over 850 liver transplants performed at Amrita Institute, 30% of patients had liver disease due to alcoholism while an equivalent 30% were secondary to diabetes mellitus (DM). This entity, now termed non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is related to “metabolic syndrome” encompassing diabetes, obesity, elevated lipids, and hypertension. NAFLD is worldwide the most common cause of liver dysfunction.
Furthermore, NAFLD is predicted to surpass all other causes as an indication for liver transplantation over the next two decades. In NAFLD, the extra energy that we consume gets deposited as fat in the liver cells. Fat causes damage by the release of toxic proteins. NAFLD consist of 4…
