liver-disease

Risk & Prevention

Liver disease can not usually manifest as visible signs and symptoms.

Symptoms

Liver disease can not usually manifest as visible signs and symptoms. If signs of liver disease do arise, they may include:

  • Yellowish-colored skin and eyes (jaundice)
  • Pain and swelling in the abdomen
  • Leg and ankle swelling
  • Skin itch
  • The urine color is dark.
  • The stool color is light.
  • Chronic exhaustion
  • Vomiting or nausea
  • Appetite loss
  • The proclivity to bruise readily

Risk factors

The following variables may increase your chances of developing liver disease:

  • Heavy alcohol consumption
  • Obesity
  • Diabetes type 2
  • Body piercings or tattoos
  • Using shared needles to inject drugs
  • Before 1992, blood transfusions were common.
  • Interaction with the body fluids and blood of others
  • Sex without protection
  • Excessive exposure to certain chemicals or poisons
  • There is a record of liver disease in the background.

Prevention

To avoid liver disease:

Consume alcohol in moderation: For healthy people, this equates to one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men. Moderate or high-risk drinking is defined more as than eight drinks per week for women and more than 15 drinks per week for men.

Avoid dangerous activity: Use a condom when having sex. When choosing a store for tattoos or body piercings, be vigilant about hygiene and safety. Seek treatment if you use illegal intravenous drugs, and never share needles while injecting narcotics.

Maintain the safety of your food: Before eating or preparing food, properly wash your hands. When visiting a developing nation, drink bottled water, wash your hands, and brush your teeth.

Use caution while using aerosol sprays: When spraying pesticides, fungicides, paint, and other harmful chemicals, apply them in a well-ventilated location and wear a mask. 

Take care of your skin: Wear gloves, long sleeves, a hat, and a mask while handling insecticides and other harmful chemicals to prevent chemicals from being absorbed via your skin.

Obtain a vaccination: If you are at high risk of acquiring hepatitis or have already been infected with any type of hepatitis virus, consult your doctor about obtaining the hepatitis A and hepatitis B vaccinations.

Use drugs with caution: Take prescription and over-the-counter medications only when necessary and in the specified doses. Never combine drugs with alcohol. Before using herbal supplements with a prescription or nonprescription medicines, consult your doctor.

Avoid coming into touch with other people’s blood or bodily fluids: Hepatitis viruses can be disseminated by inadvertent needle sticks or inappropriate blood or bodily fluid cleansing.

Keep a healthy weight: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease can be caused by obesity.

Click the icons below to learn about different risks and what you can do to keep your liver safe.

Herbal or Pharmaceutical Medication & Alternative Therapies

Many substances, whether purposefully or unintentionally breathed or swallowed, can be hazardous to the liver. Among these compounds are prescription and over-the-counter medications, industrial solvents, and contaminants. 

The liver is sensitive to the hazardous effects of self-medication since it is the body’s clearinghouse for most medicines, herbal treatments, vitamins, and diet supplements.

Here are some recommendations to assist protect your liver health and guarantee that the drugs and cures you need to take have the desired effect:

  • To avoid potentially fatal consequences, you should inform your doctor about any pharmaceutical or herbal supplements you are taking or considering taking.
  • If your doctor recommends a long-term medicine, request a liver test before starting the medication and again after the first few weeks to see how your liver is reacting to it. Regular liver tests should be performed during your therapy.
  • Always read and follow your doctor’s or prescription label’s dosage directions. Never exceed the suggested amount, and keep in mind any drugs you may be taking at the same time that may have similar chemicals.
  • Never combine medicine and drink. Alcohol raises the possibility of liver damage. When mixed with alcohol, acetaminophen can be extremely harmful.
  • Mix Tylenol® with other acetaminophen-containing medications with caution. You may mistakenly take more acetaminophen than is healthy if you take more than one pain medication or cold cure at a time. If you have liver illness, talk to your doctor about using acetaminophen.
  • Avoid using some herbal supplements (see list below) and certain vitamins in large dosages since they have the potential to harm the liver. High amounts of vitamins E, K, and notably A and D, for example, may be dangerous.

Tylenol®, one of the most popular over-the-counter pain medications, contains the active component acetaminophen. It is used to treat a range of diseases, including headaches, muscular and joint pain, menstrual discomfort, and fever.

All medications, even over-the-counter medications, have potentially dangerous side effects. Because many medicines, including acetaminophen, must be digested by the liver, patients with the liver illness must be extra cautious about what and how much medication they take.

Accidental acetaminophen overdoses are the cause of many hospitalizations, and overdose can be fatal in both children and adults. As a result, it is critical that you take whatever actions you can to mitigate this risk. Here’s some sound advice:

  • Always read and follow your doctor’s dosage instructions.
  • Never combine medicine and drink. For example, combining acetaminophen and alcohol might result in liver failure.
  • Mix Tylenol® with other acetaminophen-containing medications with caution. You may mistakenly take more acetaminophen than is healthy if you take more than one pain medication or cold cure at a time.
  • If you are taking any other drugs, talk to your doctor or pharmacist about potential drug interactions.
  • If you have liver illness, talk to your doctor about using acetaminophen.
  • Only use Tylenol® and other pain medicines when absolutely required.

Before taking any drug, it is critical that you consult with your doctor about the risks and benefits.

Alcohol Consumption

When you drink a glass of wine, beer, or other alcoholic beverage, your liver is in charge of digesting the alcohol and purifying your blood. Your liver performs over 500 important tasks, including the breakdown of alcohol. 

This implies that it can only hold so much alcohol at one time. Drinking excessively on a daily basis causes your liver to work overtime. 

This misuse can lead to the death of liver cells, the accumulation of fat deposits in your liver (fatty liver), or, more dangerously, liver inflammation (alcoholic hepatitis), irreversible scarring (cirrhosis), and even liver cancer.

Here are some pointers to think about while considering whether to order your first drink or the next round:

  • Never combine medicine and drink. For example, combining acetaminophen and alcohol might result in liver failure.
  • If you are a woman, resist peer temptation to drink more than you would normally. Women absorb more alcohol than males, making them more vulnerable to alcohol-related liver damage even if they consume less alcohol.
  • If you have hepatitis or any type of liver illness, you should abstain from alcohol totally. Alcohol might aggravate the existing liver disease.
  • Don’t engage in ‘drinking games,’ which encourage excessive alcohol intake in a short period of time.
  • Limit your alcohol consumption to one or two drinks per day, and never more than that. When it comes to your liver, the safest quantity of alcohol is none at all.

Body Beautification

Body art, piercings, and painted nails and toes are all ways to express oneself. They might be a souvenir to commemorate a significant moment, a method to symbolize what you value, or simply an impulsive self-indulgent indulgence.

Whatever the purpose, all of these body beauty procedures are dangerous if not performed appropriately.

Inadequately sanitized instruments, reused needles, or tainted inks may expose you to hepatitis B or C, two blood-borne viruses that can cause serious and potentially deadly liver illness.

Here are a few basic actions you may take to ensure that you only leave with an adorned body:

Inquire about the following:

  • Whether the company employs autoclave equipment to sterilize each customer (only an autoclave will kill the virus that causes hepatitis).
  • Whether or not this equipment is checked and maintained on a regular basis.

Ensure that the staff:

  • When there is a chance of coming into touch with blood or body fluids/tissues, wear surgical gloves.
  • Use an autoclave machine to sterilize instruments and equipment between clients.
  • All contaminated sharp objects should be disposed of away in a puncture-proof container.
  • Here are some other questions to ask before and during your visit to a spa, tattoo parlor, or another place that offers body beauty treatments.

Before:

  • Inquire about the staff’s understanding of the hazards of hepatitis and HIV transmission.
  • PLUS all of the previously mentioned things.

During:

  • Ascertain that the location is clean and clearly marked for the specified purpose.

Ensure that the staff:

  • Wear clean outerwear.
  • Hands should be washed with soap and warm water before and after each procedure (or use a waterless hand cleaner).
  • When there is a chance of blood contact with clothes, wear aprons or other protective gear.
  • Work on surfaces that are smooth and non-porous in nature.
  • Clean all surfaces with a bleach-water solution.
  • PLUS all of the previously mentioned things.

Protecting your liver while traveling may be as simple as taking some measures before you go and following a few basic safeguards while you’re away.

The following suggestions may assist you to avoid bringing home any “unwanted keepsakes” from your trip:

Before you go (3 months prior to departure)

  • Learn about potential health concerns and if you need to get inoculated against hepatitis A and B, as well as other illnesses including malaria and yellow fever. 

(2 months before leaving)

  • Check to see if your prescription prescriptions are current and legal in the nation you’re going.
  • Get a physical examination and inform your doctor about the countries to be visited, the duration of stay in each country, the time of year in each place (season), the kind of lodging (big hotel, rustic tent, etc.), and the mode of transport (bus tour, backpacking, etc).

During your journey

  • Take care to ensure the safety of the water (use bottled, purified, or boiled water for drinking, making ice cubes, brushing teeth, washing food, etc). 
  • Use proper hand-washing practices and have hand sanitizers on hand.

Checklist of Vaccinations:

  • Illness: Hepatitis A 

Transmission: Food/water in places with inadequate sanitation

Vaccines and Disease Notes: For lifelong immunity, injections are administered on Day 0 and at Month 6 or Month 12.

  • Disease: Hepatitis B

Transmission occurs through blood and sexual contact with infected individuals.

Vaccine and Illness Information: For lifetime immunity, injections are administered on Day 0, Day 30, and Month 6.

  • Disease: Hepatitis C

Direct contact with infected people’s blood results in transmission.

Vaccine and Illness Notes: Because there is no vaccine available, it is vital to practice safe sex, prevent unsafe tattooing/piercing, and another direct contact with blood, and so on.

  • Illness: Malaria 

Transmission: Malaria is transmitted by mosquitos.

Vaccines and Disease Notes: Oral medicine should be taken 1-2 days or weeks (depending on the drug) before entering a malaria-risk location, every day or week while there, and 7 days to 4 weeks after returning.

  • Disease: Yellow Fever

Transmission occurs by mosquito bites.

Vaccines and Disease Notes: A single injection is required, however, it must be administered at least 10 days before travel (immunity for 10 years). Can result in liver failure, which causes jaundice, thus the term “yellow fever.”

Consult Your Doctor:

  • methods to lower your chances of becoming sick
  • to determine if vaccines are required for disease prevention, normal health measures, or as legal requirements for entrance into particular countries
  • to renew any medicines you may be taking and require while gone, as well as to give a note regarding these drugs if you will need to carry them during your trip
  • Obtain the required vaccines (from your family doctor or travel clinic)

More Pre-Travel Advice:

  • Confirm that your health insurance coverage is enough and current at least one month in advance. 
  • Keep up with current travel health warnings.
  • Pack a first-aid/medical kit. Keep medicine, including a doctor’s letter for prescription medication, in your hand baggage.
  • Make a list of travel medical clinics in the area you’ll be going.
  • Pack some safe sex supplies before you travel (if you plan on being sexually active while away), as they are not always as easily available abroad, and quality varies by country.
  • Pack a water purifier (such as a SteriPen) to sanitize water.

Additional Travel Advice:

  • When you arrive, find out the local emergency number and the address of the nearest hospital.
  • Experiment with safe sex.
  • Ensure that dairy products are pasteurized, that fruits and vegetables are appropriately prepared, well-washed, or peeled, and that meats and fish are well-cooked and consumed immediately after preparation. Avoid eating from street sellers.

When You Get Back Home:

  • For at least 10 days, keep track of your health.
  • If you become unwell, see a doctor and inform them about: a) your symptoms, b) where you traveled, and c) any close contact with any very ill people.

Sex

Before engaging in any type of sexual activity, it is critical to understand the hazards and how to protect both yourself and your partner. Hepatitis is a liver illness that can be passed on through sexual contact. 

It is essential to take the following precautions to reduce the risk of developing hepatitis during sexual activity:

  • Obtain hepatitis A and B immunization (there is currently no vaccination for hepatitis C).
  • Use a condom during vaginal, oral, or anal intercourse to practice safer sex.
  • After intercourse, wash your hands thoroughly before preparing food, eating, drinking, or smoking.
  • If you believe you or your spouse have been exposed to hepatitis A, B, or C, call your doctor straight once.

How can it be passed on sexually?

  • Hepatitis A is not commonly spread through sexual contact. Any oral/fecal contact, including that which may occur during sexual activity, poses a significant risk of infection with hepatitis A. This might include:
  • Sex anal
  • Anal or fecal contact with the mouth (for example, fingering a partner’s anus or touching a used condom after anal intercourse and then putting fingers on/in mouth)

How can I safeguard myself and my partner?

  • Obtain a vaccination. Hepatitis A vaccination is available and is administered in two shots six to twelve months apart.
  • Wash your hands thoroughly after bowel movements, intercourse, food preparation, and before eating, drinking, or smoking.
  • Before having sex, keep your genital and anal regions clean.
  • When having vaginal, anal, or oral intercourse, use a condom.
  • If you believe you or your spouse may have been exposed to hepatitis A, call your doctor straight once.

B Hepatitis

How can it be passed on sexually for B Hepatitis?

Hepatitis B is even more contagious than AIDS and has a high risk of sexual transmission. Hepatitis B can be contracted by contact with blood, sperm, vaginal discharge, or other body fluids during intercourse. This might include:

  • Vaginal, oral, or anal intercourse without protection.
  • Using sex toys together.

Other non-sexual behaviors that may expose you to risk include:

  • Tattooing, body piercing, manicures, and pedicures are performed using non-sterile equipment or inks.
  • Sharing needles or other drug-related equipment.

How can I safeguard myself and my partner for B hepatitis?

  • Obtain a vaccination. Hepatitis B vaccinations are available and are administered in three doses over a six-month period.
  • Experiment with safe sex.
  • Before and after usage, sterilize sex toys.
  • Do not share personal hygiene items that may contain blood traces, such as toothbrushes, nail clippers, razors, or nail files.
  • If you believe you or your spouse may have been exposed to hepatitis B, call your doctor straight once.

The Hepatitis C virus

How can it be passed on sexually for C Virus?

Hepatitis C transmission through intercourse is quite unlikely. Any action that may result in blood exposure, on the other hand, has some danger, such as:

  • Rough sex in the presence of blood
  • Having vaginal intercourse with a lady when she is menstruating

Other non-sexual behaviors that may expose you to risk include:

  • Tattooing, body piercing, manicures, or pedicures using non-sterile equipment or inks
  • Needle sharing, or other drug-related activities

How can I safeguard myself and my partner for C virus?

Because there is no vaccination for hepatitis C, the best approach is to practice safer sex and avoid any unintentional contact with blood.

  • When having vaginal, oral, or anal intercourse, use condoms.
  • Do not share personal hygiene items that may contain blood traces, such as toothbrushes, nail clippers, razors, or nail files.
  • If you believe you or your partner may have been exposed to hepatitis C, call your doctor straight once.

Chemicals in the Home

Your liver not only metabolizes what enters your body, but it also metabolizes what leaves your body. Chemical cleaning chemicals can be inhaled, ingested, or simply come into physical touch. Follow these guidelines to make your home as liver-friendly as possible:

  • Make sure the space is well-ventilated and/or use a mask when cleaning or painting. Exposure to airborne pollutants can harm your liver since the liver must process everything you breathe in.
  • When applying weed-control pesticides or spraying for pests, take measures to avoid exposure.
  • Investigate more organic techniques of lawn and garden maintenance, as well as cleaning inside surfaces.
  • Take advantage of every opportunity to get outside and get some exercise. Exercise helps to keep your body, particularly your liver, robust and capable of defending itself against contaminants.

Healthy cleaning alternatives for you and your home:

The following are some tried-and-true cleaning solutions that homeowners depended on long before the term “anti-bacterial wipe” was coined.

Natural Soap

For decades, people used pure soap to wash their clothes, their homes, and themselves. It is now a major element in many alternative cleaning solutions. Soap biodegrades entirely and safely and is non-toxic. Use soap that is free of synthetic smells, colors, and other substances.

5% acetic acid vinegar

Vinegar is a moderate disinfectant that dissolves calcium deposits, stains, and wax build-up while cutting grease and cleaning glass.

Corn flour

Cornstarch is an odorless powder that is excellent for cleaning carpets and removing grease stains.

Baking Soda (Sodium Carbonate)

Washing soda is an important element in the laundry because it reduces oil, eliminates stains, disinfects, and softens the water. Aluminum should not be cleaned with washing soda.

Baking Powder (Bicarbonate of Soda)

Baking soda is an excellent abrasive, as well as a deodorizer, stain remover, polisher, and fabric softener.

Salt 

Salt dissolves quickly in water and is an excellent abrasive for cleaning pots and pans. It may also be used in conjunction with vinegar or lemon juice to clean sinks, tiles, and glass, as well as to remove coffee and tea stains.

Do you want your house to smell clean and enticing?

Try using home plants as natural air filters. Alternatively, try the following natural remedies to eliminate odors and provide a fresh scent to your home:

  • White vinegar naturally eliminates odors from surfaces and the air.
  • Baking soda absorbs odors, so have a few open boxes about the house.
  • When spices like cinnamon are boiled in a small amount of water, their smell is released.
  • Essential oils mixed in water can be used as a spray freshener; try a blend of your favorite essential oils, such as lemon (an excellent air deodorizer) and cedar.

Food and Drink

The liver is the most efficient factory on the planet. It powers your body by storing and releasing energy as needed. Because your liver is responsible for processing food into the chemicals required for living, it is critical to select food choices that promote liver health.

Although there is no special “liver health diet,” the following basic principles can assist ensure that your liver is working optimally:

  • Consume modest, frequent meals. Do not miss meals or eat excessively.
  • Drink 6 to 8 glasses of fluids every day (ideally water).
  • Choose a range of entire meals on a regular basis, including fruits and vegetables, protein sources (legumes, lean meats), whole grains (quinoa, wild rice), dairy (low-fat yogurt, milk, and cheese), and healthy fat sources (nuts, avocado, fatty fish).
  • Increase your diet of fresh fruits and vegetables, particularly those with rich vivid hues like oranges, yellows, reds, and greens. Fruits and vegetables are strong in antioxidants, which are essential for liver health generally.
  • Increase your diet of raw vegetables with high sulfur content.
  • To eliminate pesticides, wash fruits and vegetables just before eating. To avoid sweating or spoiling, avoid washing too far in advance.
  • Steam or bake veggies and fruits while cooking.
  • Reduce your intake of saturated fat and simple sugar, since excessive use of sugar (fructose) sweetened drinks and fatty meals high in saturated fat has been linked to an increased risk of developing fatty liver.
  • To meet your vitamin D requirements, consume vitamin D-fortified dairy products and vitamin D-fortified plant-based meals. This is critical for liver function and maintaining healthy body weight.
  • Choose whole grains over white/bleached/refined grains.

Every day, your liver is concerned about what you eat and drink. Too much sugar and saturated fat in your diet can have the same impact as too much alcohol in terms of fat accumulation in the liver. When the liver is fatty, it cannot execute all of its 500 activities and can get progressively more damaged, leading to cirrhosis and even cancer. The greatest way to maintain a healthy liver is to make healthier decisions on a regular basis.