Cancer, cirrhosis, fatty liver and more, watch out for these signs of your liver giving up on you due to alcohol.
New Delhi: The liver is one of the most hardworking organs in your body and it turns out your weekend party-mode may just be causing irreparable harm to your liver.
"Alcohol is toxic to the liver. It causes liver damage by affecting the liver cells, triggering inflammation in the liver, causing fibrosis in the liver and also resulting in deposition of fat in the liver. All these can lead to liver damage and finally liver failure," says Dr C Vikram Belliappa, Consultant Surgical Gastroenterologist, Vikram Hospital Bengaluru.
Alcohol increases risk of cancer
Liver cancer caused by alcohol consumption may have a worse prognosis than other forms of cancer. "Such type of liver cancer is almost always detected in the later stages from where it is very difficult to reverse. If you put an alcohol-related and a non-alcohol-related patient’s reports against each other, you would see that the former has a worse liver function. Several studies conducted have suggested that the former type of patients have a reduced overall survival chance due to worse liver condition and tumour properties in diagnosis," Vipul Jain, CEO, Advancells: Stem Cell Therapy Centre.
People with liver cancer caused due to alcohol abuse have very less chance of survival mainly because of its nature because they also suffer from serious liver damage (cirrhosis). Therefore, these patients suffer from liver cancer and liver failure making the prognosis worse.
How much drinking is too much?
Dr C Vikram Belliappa, consultant surgical gastroenterologist, Vikram Hospital Bengaluru, says "New research shows all forms of alcohol consumption is harmful to the liver. Consumption of above 30 ml of hard liquor or more than 2 pints of beer per day is considered excessive."
So, there’s no upper or lower limit to drinking as there isn’t any alcoholic beverage which will not harm your liver. But, the situation is not so bleak. All you need is to have a little bit of willpower and of course, a liver detox diet.
Also read: 5 things to include in detox diet for the liver
Jain says, "Everything including beer, liquor, or even wine are manageable until consumed in a very limited quantity. So, you could say anything more than two drinks in a day is too much and can expose your liver to alcoholic hepatitis that leads to liver devolution, and can further turn into cirrhosis or
may even be deadly."
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