Fatty Liver Information

The human liver is an amazing, life-sustaining organ as the Creator intended. The liver has 5 main functions:

• Filtration of our blood
• Digestion
• Metabolism and
• Detoxification
• Protein synthesis
• Storage of vitamins and minerals

The liver removes toxins and poisons from the blood, maintains healthy blood sugar levels, regulates blood clotting, and performs hundreds of other vital functions.

The liver also constantly produces bile, a fluid that helps digest fats and carry away waste.

Here are some of the most important actions our liver does, 24/7/365, with no complaint - until it does!

Albumin Production: Albumin is a protein that keeps fluids in the bloodstream from leaking into surrounding tissue. It also carries hormones, vitamins, and enzymes through the body.

Bile Production: Bile is a fluid that is critical to the digestion and absorption of fats in the small intestine.

Filters Blood: All the blood leaving the stomach and intestines passes through the liver, which removes toxins, byproducts, and other harmful substances.

Regulates Amino Acids: The production of proteins depend on amino acids. The liver makes sure amino acid levels in the bloodstream remain healthy.

Regulates Blood Clotting: Blood clotting coagulants are created using vitamin K, which can only be absorbed with the help of bile, a fluid the liver produces.

Resists Infections: As part of the filtering process, the liver also removes bacteria from the bloodstream.

Stores Vitamins and Minerals: The liver stores significant amounts of vitamins A, D, E, K, and B12, as well as iron and copper.

Processes Glucose: The liver removes excess glucose (sugar) from the bloodstream and stores it as glycogen. As needed, it can convert glycogen back into glucose.

Mayo Clinic puts it best:

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, often called NAFLD, is a liver problem that affects people who drink little to no alcohol. In NAFLD, too much fat builds up in the liver. It is seen most often in people who are overweight or obese.

NAFLD is becoming more common around the world, especially in Middle Eastern and Western nations as the number of people with obesity rises. It is the most common form of chronic liver disease, affecting about 25% of the world's population. In the United States, about 100 million people have NAFLD.

Some people with NAFLD can get nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, also called NASH. NASH is a serious form of fatty liver disease that causes the liver to swell and become damaged due to the fat deposits in the liver. NASH may get worse and may lead to serious liver scarring, called cirrhosis, and even liver cancer. This damage is like the damage caused by heavy alcohol use.

A move is currently underway to change the name nonalcoholic fatty liver disease to metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). Experts also have recommended changing the name nonalcoholic steatohepatitis to metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH).

Firstly, it is important to always consult with your physician to ensure your individual medical needs are accounted for.

Experts have offered the following advice:

1. Embark on a regular exercise program or 6-8,000 steps per day with up to 3 moderate resistance workouts per week
2. Increase intake of clean pure water to at least 2-3 litres per day
3. Limit sugar, especially high fructose corn syrup. This is particularly damaging for the liver and it is present in many processed foods and beverages. Check the label!
4. Reduce alcohol intake

Weight loss and a better diet are the key factors in helping the liver repair itself.

While these are primary actions to take, sometimes we just need a boost along and that is where NTA-34® can be of benefit to support the liver's natural healing process, even when you haven't quite established a better routine.

We all live busy, stressful lives. A dietary supplement can enhance the bodies natural healing processes by making up a lack in nutritional intake and supporting key metabolic functions that may have slowed due to age, injury, diet, or other factors that may be beyond our control.

The NIH National Library of Medicine, National Centre for Biotechnology Information is an authoritative resource for clinical evidence backing the key ingredients contained in NTA-34®, as agents to promote liver health.

1. T/UDCA. Non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a part of metabolic syndrome that has become a worldwide health concern. Cardiovascular diseases and type II diabetes are closely associated with the progression of NAFLD (Targher et al., 2016). The clinical spectrum of NAFLD includes isolated steatosis, steatosis with inflammation and fibrosis. Ten to twenty percent of NAFLD cases will develop non‐alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) (Hyysalo et al., 2014), which increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases, malignancy and liver‐related death. Fibrosis also aggravates the prognosis of NAFLD (Ratziu et al., 2015). Approximately 10–15% of NASH will progress to cirrhosis, and the latter increases the incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma. Lifestyle intervention, as the main therapeutic option, could control only 2.8% of NASH development (Ratziu et al., 2015). Therefore, the development of effective therapies for NAFLD is a crucial clinical goal.
   
   Studies have revealed that the increased intestinal mucosal inflammation and intestinal epithelial barrier disruption, which increase the likelihood of the translocation of microbial products, are closely involved in the progression of NAFLD (Rahman et al., 2016). Mice with defects in intestinal epithelial permeability developed more severe steatohepatitis after consuming a diet containing 0.2% cholesterol, 20% protein, 43% carbohydrates and 23% fat than their counterparts fed a normal diet containing 16% protein, 61% carbohydrates and 7.2% fat (Rahman et al., 2016). Additionally, a human study revealed that patients with NAFLD have increased gut epithelial permeability, decreased levels of tight junction proteins, zonula occludens‐1 (ZO‐1), claudin 1 and occludin and higher levels of inflammation; these changes are closely associated with the occurrence and progression of NAFLD (Xin et al., 2014). A meta‐analysis indicated that, compared with healthy volunteers, patients with NAFLD and NASH were more likely to have enhanced intestinal permeability (Luther et al., 2015). The increased gut permeability increases liver exposure to intestine‐derived bacterial products (such as LPS, short‐chain fatty acids, bile acids, cytokines and ethanol), which increase hepatic inflammation and dyslipidaemia by activating toll‐like receptor (TLR) signalling and the inflammasome (Csak et al., 2011; Henao‐Mejia et al., 2012). Additionally, studies have shown that NAFLD is closely associated with the changed composition of intestinal microbiota. Many species in human gut microbiota are thought to be associated with the progression of NAFLD such as Bifidobacterium, Roseburia and Ruminococcus (Le Roy et al., 2013; Boursier et al., 2016). Moreover, various distinct mechanisms have been suggested for the microbiome in NAFLD and complications of dysbiosis: dysfunctional intestinal barrier with small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (Miele et al., 2009), inflammatory responses and metabolites produced or modified by the microbiota such as bile acids and LPS (Abu‐Shanab and Quigley, 2010). This complicated crosstalk among gut microbiota, intestinal permeability and the immune system collectively modulate the progression of NAFLD to NASH.
   
   Bile acids have been reported to induce multiple effects on the intestinal lumen and intestinal wall, including pro‐intestinal or anti‐intestinal inflammatory responses (Martinez‐Moya et al., 2013; Renga et al., 2013), resolution of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in intestinal epithelial cells underlying the pathology of inflammatory bowel disease (Berger and Haller, 2011), improvement of gut barrier dysfunction (Stenman et al., 2013) and regulation of gut microbes (Arab et al., 2017). These findings suggest that there is a complex relationship between bile acids and the intestine. Tauroursodeoxycholic acid (TUDCA), as a conjugated bile acid derivative, has been demonstrated to treat NAFLD via acting as an endogenous chemical chaperone to protect cells against ER stress (Xie et al., 2002; Choi et al., 2014; Itoh et al., 2016). Moreover, TUDCA can also decrease the inflammation in the intestine of mice with dextran sulfate sodium‐induced colitis (Cao et al., 2013a). As the intestinal micro‐environment (including inflammation status, function of the epithelial tight junction and gut microbiota) has an essential role in the progression of NAFLD and there is a close relationship between bile acids and the intestinal state, we hypothesized that TUDCA ameliorates NAFLD via gut–liver crosstalk: the compound reduces gut inflammation, augments intestinal barrier function, decreases intestinal fat transport and modulates gut microbiota
2. NAC. Liver cancer is one of the most common life threatening malignancies, all over the world and up to now, there is no effective drug for the treatment of liver tumors (35). Although, interferon (IFN) is the most applied medication in chronic hepatitis and hepatocarcinoma, due to its immune response activation property and also regulation of differentiation and cell growth (36). NAC, as an enhancer of glutathione biosynthesis (37), is one of the frequently used antioxidant drugs for treatment of liver disorders (38,39). Cell culture and animal models have shown that NAC can preserve normal cells against toxicity of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, but not cancerous cells (37). Administration of NAC may play a role in treatment of some forms of cancer, while induced damages in DNA can be completely blocked by NAC (38).

If your doctor wishes to confirm liver function, they will likely check 5 key indicators:

1. Liver enzymes test. Your liver enzymes include alkaline phosphatase (ALP), alanine transaminase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT). These can be elevated when there is damage to the liver.
2. Total protein test. A total protein test measures levels of protein in your blood. Your liver makes protein, and low protein levels could indicate that your liver isn’t functioning correctly.
3. Bilirubin test. Bilirubin is a waste product that your liver deposits in bile.
4. LDH test. Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) is an enzyme found in many of your body’s tissues, including your liver.
5. Prothrombin Time (PT) test. This test measures how long it takes for a sample of your blood to clot, a process that involves proteins that your liver produces.