Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) can progress to a serious stage, where scar tissue prevents the organ from working properly, if left untreated. This is known as cirrhosis which can become life-threatening. Therefore, it’s imperative to keep fatty liver in check. Fortunately, research suggests that garlic could do this with gusto.
Whether you use it as a base for your pasta sauce or rub it on your toast, garlic offers more than a kick of flavour.
Packed with antioxidant and antibiotic properties, the pungent plant has some impressive health powers.
Emerging evidence also suggests that garlic and its bioactive components could help mitigate simple fatty liver.
Also known as steatosis, simple fatty liver is a largely harmless build-up of fat in the cone-shaped organ.
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While this stage of fatty liver disease is usually harmless, NAFLD can progress all the way to serious cirrhosis, which can leave your liver scarred and lumpy.
The research, published in the journal Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity, decided to put garlic’s powers to a test by looking at patients with simple fatty liver.
Including 110 patients with ultrasound-diagnosed NAFLD, the participants were randomly assigned either 800mg of garlic or a placebo for 15 weeks.
After following this regimen, around 51.1 percent of volunteers in the garlic group saw improvement in their fatty liver, compared to the placebo group.
This research is especially interesting because there’s currently no medication for NAFLD, with healthy lifestyle choices being labelled as the first port of help.
The NHS recommends losing weight if you’re overweight and following a healthy diet.
Your food regimen should be packed with fruits, vegetables, protein and carbohydrates while remaining low in fat, sugar and salt.
Furthermore, having water instead of sugary drinks and cutting back on alcohol could also help.
What are the symptoms of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease?
Unfortunately, NAFLD doesn’t usually trigger symptoms in the early stages.
However, once the condition progresses to later stages like fibrosis, warning signs may appear.
The health service lists the following symptoms to spot:
- Dull or aching pain in the top right of the tummy (over the lower right side of the ribs)
- Extreme tiredness
- Unexplained weight loss
- Weakness.
It advises seeing a GP if you have any of these symptoms and think you may have a liver condition.
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