We all eat it and yet, this food very appreciated by young and old would be even worse than alcohol for our liver. The opinion of a doctor expert in liver diseases.
Often singled out by doctors and considered the worst food to swallow for your liver in the collective consciousness, alcohol is, in reality, not the worst food for your liver. As reminded by Professor Laurent Castera, liver disease specialistasked about European 1we can damage our liver without drinking a single drop of alcohol.
“Everyone knows that alcohol is bad for the liver. On the other hand, people know less that a sedentary lifestyle, junk food, sugar, overweight, diabetes, it is bad for the liver and it can lead to chronic liver disease up to cirrhosis of the liver” explains the doctor, all too often confronted with the effects of a poor lifestyle in his patients. “Sugar is responsible for fat in the liver” he underlines, before confirming that its excessive consumption can lead to fatty liver disease. Also called non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, this pathology would still affect 200,000 people in France according to Inserm. This is why the doctor invites us to review our lifestyle, in particular by taking care to consume less sugar.
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3 things to do to keep your liver healthy, according to a doctor
In this interview, the liver specialist also reveals the good reflexes to take on a daily basis to protect your liver.
- Avoid ultra-processed foods: the professor points out that processed foods often contain “sugars bad for the liver”. Consuming it regularly would therefore be as bad as drinking alcohol for our liver.
- Exercising: starting from the observation that the French spend more than 8 hours in front of the screens, the doctor reminds us that this sedentary lifestyle is also very bad for the health of our liver. Two and a half hours of cardio-type physical exercise per week would be enough to keep a healthy liver.
- Avoid alcohol: even if it is sugar that is responsible for fat in the liver, alcohol is still a bad drink for the liver since it is very sweet. Its effects are also worse if you consume both a lot of sugar and alcohol on a daily basis. The doctor also points out that this reflex is all the more important when you have a risk factor for liver disease such as diabetes or obesity, because you “significantly increases the risk of developing chronic liver disease” by drinking alcohol.