Fatty liver disease may be on rise as Bajans ‘over-drink’ – doc

A medical practitioner is concerned that fatty liver disease may be on the rise in Barbados due the over consumption of alcohol.

Dr Thalayah Butcher-Medford revealed her concerns at a health fair organised by the Blessed Hope Seventh-day Adventist church at Husbands Gardens, St James on Sunday where she gave a talk on the disease, formally known as steatotic liver disease. 

She said: “Everyone always drinking alcohol and they don’t see, they don’t seem to realize that even though it might not affect them now, it can affect them in the future when they get older as well as diabetes and the sugar and everything, as I mentioned, the liver filters everything that passes through your body, so you need to take care of that.”

As Dr Butcher-Medford explained, neglecting the liver, which plays a critical role in filtering toxins from the blood, could lead to serious medical complications over time.

She also cautioned that fatty liver disease is often difficult to detect in its early stages because it frequently presents no obvious symptoms.

“You tend to not know that you have it. What you can do is, regular checkups with your provider and ask them to do some blood tests. If there’s any enzymes elevated or not within the liver and via those tests you can then figure out if you have fatty liver disease or not.”

The general practitioner said the absence of early symptoms also makes it difficult to identify which age groups are most affected by the condition.

“It’s not detected early so when it’s detected, it tends to be late and the symptoms are mild like, you get fatigue and you have few bloating and swelling of the stomach but people can’t pass it off as they’re just tired or they’re stressed out or what we would call a beer belly. Some will tend not to notice the little symptoms that do show they don’t associate it with fatty liver disease.”

Dr Butcher-Medford noted that despite the potentially serious consequences of the disease, the first three of its four stages can be reversed through lifestyle changes.

“You can do that by lifestyle changes such as diet, exercise, and loss of weight and if you’re a prevalent drinker of alcohol, you need to stop drinking and when you do that you can actually reverse the changes of alcohol between two to four weeks actually, but if you’re detected in stage 4, unfortunately it’s not reversible so in that stage that’s when you have to look now for a liver transplant because at this point the liver cannot regenerate itself.”

She explained that one of the major complications associated with advanced fatty liver disease is cirrhosis, while the condition can also increase the risk of liver cancer.

“You can have, cirrhosis, which is basically the end stage of fatty liver damage. It can also cause hepatocellular carcinoma, aslo known as liver cancer. There are other diseases, multiple diseases, but the main things that happen that we tend to focus on is cirrhosis of the liver as well as cancer of the liver.”

While acknowledging that organ transplants can be difficult to obtain, Dr Butcher-Medford said liver transplants offer unique advantages because of the organ’s ability to regenerate.

“The liver is so amazing it can regenerate itself, so if you have a family member that is a match to you, all you need is part of their liver, once you have that small piece of liver transplanted in you, it can regenerate itself to become a whole new liver, so it is one of, I don’t wanna say the easiest ones, but you tend to have a better outcome when it comes to that.” 

The health fair formed part of the church’s community outreach efforts to provide free health checks, education and activities to encourage healthy practices.

City Central SDA Pastor Dillon Basil sets the example by getting his pressure checked during Sunday’s health fair. (Photo Credit: Lourianne Graham/Barbados TODAY)

(LG)