Strange Cause Of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Recently Discovered

Health Wellness

Everyone is familiar with people who drink too much to the point of getting drunk. Unfortunately, we see them on the roads, in restaurants, bars and virtually anywhere people can be. I lost my three best friends to a drunk driver years ago. But, can people get drunk without drinking alcohol or taking drugs?

A fatty liver is also known as hepatic steatosis. Livers normally have a small amount of fat within them, but when the amount of fat builds up to a point that it poses a health condition, it is referred to as a fatty liver.

The liver is the second largest organ in the human body and plays an important role in processing everything we eat and drink. The liver helps metabolize many of the nutrients we need. In many cases, it’s the liver that processes vitamins, supplements and medications we take and when the liver doesn’t function properly, it often leads to the lack of vital proteins, nutrients and vitamins and the inefficiency of medications.

Symptoms of a fatty liver include abdominal pain, abdominal swelling, breast enlargement in men, confusion, fatigue, itchy skin, loss of appetite, swelling of the legs, weakness, web-like clusters of blood vessels under the skin, weight loss and yellowing of skin and eyes.

Fatty liver disease is divided into 2 general categories – alcoholic and nonalcoholic.

According to the American Liver Foundation, about 90% to 100% of heavy drinkers have a fatty liver. Most people naturally associate fatty liver disease with drinking, but they would be surprised to learn that about 100 million Americans suffer from nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

The causes of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease are high blood sugar, high levels of fat (triglycerides) in the blood, insulin resistance and obesity. It can also be caused by exposure to certain toxins, infections such as hepatitis C, pregnancy, rapid weight loss and side effects from some medications.

However, a new report indicates that nondrinkers may actually suffer from alcoholic induced fatty liver, and the culprit will surprise you:

It’s common knowledge that drinking too much alcohol can lay waste to your liver. But now, researchers have spotted a strain of gut bacteria that produces its own booze in copious amounts — high enough to potentially pose a risk of liver problems in people who don’t drink at all. 

Although much more research is needed to confirm the results, they suggest that these boozy bacteria may contribute to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a condition in which fat builds up in the liver for reasons unrelated to alcohol consumption.

The researchers first stumbled upon this unusual microbe while they were studying a patient with a curious condition: The patient had so-called auto-brewery syndrome (ABS), an extremely rare condition that leaves people drunk after eating sugary food. In the week before he sought medical care, the unfortunate patient became inebriated each time he consumed a carbohydrate-rich meal and his blood-alcohol concentration had occasionally spiked to potentially lethal levels, around 0.4%. He was even suspected to be a “closet drinker” by his friends, according to the new study, published today (Sept. 19) in the journal Cell Metabolism. 

ABS has been linked to yeast infections, wherein the fungus ferments alcohol in the intestines just as it brews beer in barrels; but in this case, yeast wasn’t the culprit. 

The researchers looked to their patient’s poop for answers. They found, not yeast, but strains of alcohol-producing bacteria called Klebsiella pneumonia. This is the first time that a bacterium has  been linked to ABS, study co-author Jing Yuan, a professor and director of the bacteriology laboratory at the Capital Institute of Pediatrics in Beijing, told Live Science in an email. Though the common gut bacteria poses no problem in healthy people, the microbe appeared to be producing four to six times the normal level of alcohol in the patient. 

Besides becoming intoxicated, the patient also suffered from severe liver inflammation and scarring due to a buildup of fat in the organ, his doctors noted. The condition, called nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, is a progressive form of NAFLD, and the researchers wondered if others with the disorder might carry the same “super-strain” of boozy bacteria.

This may be a rare case, but one has to wonder how many others may actually suffer from the same ABS, because everyone assumes they are drinkers. Many people today eat carbohydrate rich diets – breads, pasta, potatoes, rice, cookies, cake, ice cream, soda, fruit drinks, etc. Think about yourself and the people you know. If you or they appear to be drunk on occasion, could it be ABS instead of drinking alcohol? I strongly suspect that intoxication and fatty liver caused by ABS is more common than once believed.

 

 

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