Here is an interesting article on identifying symptoms that could reflect damage to the liver or liver disease itself:
Knowing
how to recognize the symptoms of liver disease can save your life. As
with so many illnesses and diseases, liver disease, if spotted early enough,
can be arrested, and cured (providing the causes have been identified and are
avoided in the future), and your liver can fully recover, growing new healthy
tissue to replace any that has been damaged, just as long as the disease has
not been allowed to progress too far – hence the importance of knowing what the
warning signs to look out for.
An organ and a gland
Your liver is the largest internal organ (and also the largest
internal gland) that you have in your body. In a healthy adult, a normal liver
will weigh somewhere between 3 - 3.5 pounds and it plays a crucial role in a
number of body system functions.
The functions of the liver
The key functions of the liver are to detoxify your blood, and
to enhance your digestive system by creating bile, which helps to break down
the fats that you consume into small pieces, making them easier for your small
intestine to absorb. But that’s not all. Here is a quick summary of what your
liver does for you:
- detoxes the blood, filtering out any harmful and unwanted substances like drugs and alcohol
- produces bile to aid digestion
- stores some of the body’s vitamins and iron
- stores glucose
- converts glucose into sugar that the body can use when the body’s sugar levels become depleted
- processes hemoglobin, insulin and a variety of other hormones
- converts ammonia into urea, an essential ingredient for healthy metabolism
- eliminates old red blood cells, which produce fecal matter which is normally brown in color. This is why when your stools are discolored (i.e. not brown); it can be an indication there is something wrong with your liver function.
Without a healthy liver, any holistic health lifestyle will
become severely compromised, and depending on the nature and severity of
disease, could prove fatal, which is why it’s so important to be able to detect
and interpret the early symptoms of liver disease.
Hepatic disease
Liver disease is also sometimes referred to as hepatic disease.
When any type of hepatic disease affects up to three quarters of your liver
tissue, that’s when a significant increase in liver function can be detected.
The causes of liver disease
Liver disease can be brought about in a number of different
ways:
- its cells may be inflamed, as with hepatitis
- the passage of bile may become obstructed, as in cholestasis
- a build-up of cholesterol may occur
- the flow of blood to the liver can be damaged
- the tissue of the liver may be attacked and damaged by toxins
Alcohol abuse and cirrhosis of the liver
The
most common cause of liver disease in North America is alcohol abuse. The final
stage of liver disease (when the liver sustains severe scarring and cannot
regenerate replacement tissue) is known as cirrhosis of the liver, and this is
responsible for approximately 25,000 deaths per annum here in North America.
The classic symptoms of liver disease
The most frequent and common symptoms of liver disease
include:
- bad breath
- black circles beneath the eyes
- bad body odor
- brown blemishes on the skin
- coated tongue
- discolored stools
- flushed facial appearance
- inflamed palms and soles of feet
- swollen eyeballs
- jaundice, the yellowing of the skin which can often also be evidenced in the whites of the eyes
- nausea
- pain, which is felt in the uppermost right hand quadrant of the abdomen
- increased tendency to perspire excessively
Some people also suffer from fatigue and weight loss.
These symptoms of liver disease relate to hepatic disease
in general, but there are also many different, specific, illnesses or diseases
that affect the liver, and each of these has its own specific symptoms.
Gallstones
The symptoms of liver disease that are associated with
gallstones, include pain in the upper right quadrant of the abdomen, vomiting (from
having eaten a fatty or greasy meal), and if the gallbladder itself becomes
infected, this may also bring about a fever.
Cirrhosis of the liver
As hepatic disease progresses and reaches the stage of
cirrhosis, the following symptoms of liver disease may often appear.
- a tendency to bruise more easily - because the liver is no longer able to efficiently clot the blood
- itchiness - the result of bile salts being deposited in the skin can cause itching
- enlarged male breasts - a condition known as gynecomatia and can be brought about by upsetting the balance of sex hormones, and an increase in the hormone estradiol in particular
- erectile dysfunction - the upsetting of the balance of sex hormones can also bring about a reduction in sex drive and cause the testicles to shrink.
- feeling confused - feelings of confusion arise when the levels of ammonia in the bloodstream become too high. This ammonia is normally removed from the bloodstream by a healthy liver, but when liver health is compromised, the sufferer may experience feelings of confusion.
- feelings of lethargy - also potentially brought about by the increase in blood ammonia.
- decrease in muscle tissue - a compromised liver will also reduce its production of proteins, and this can lead to the wasting of muscle.
- swollen stomach veins - because blood pressure becomes increased with a cirrhotic liver, the blood flow to the liver can become compromised, possibly resulting in a swelling to the veins around the stomach area.
The unusual metabolization of fats
Another of the prime symptoms of liver disease is the
abnormal metabolization of fats (your metabolism), which can manifest itself in
the following ways:
- elevated levels of LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, at the same time as decreased levels of HDL cholesterol.
- hypertension or blood pressure caused by your blood vessels becoming blocked by fatty deposits, potentially leading to stroke and heart attack.
- fatty tumors and lymphomas developing in the skin
- significant weight gain that could lead to obesity
- difficulty in losing weight, even though you may be dieting
- a sluggishly slow metabolism
- bloated stomach
- the appearance of cellulite
- developing a roll of fat around the upper abdomen a.k.a. your own armchair.
Symptoms to look for with your digestive system
The symptoms of liver disease can also be seen in
relation to the digestive system and can include things like:
- constipation
- hemorrhoids
- indigestion and/or reflux
- the inability to tolerate alcohol
- the inability to tolerate fatty food
- irritable bowel syndrome
Symptoms relating to blood sugar levels
The symptoms of liver damage that relate to blood sugar
include things like:
- developing a craving for sweet things
- unstable levels of sugar in the blood, also known as hypoglycemia
- the onset, in later life, of type II diabetes
Symptoms relating to your immune system
Poor liver health can also affect your immune system in which
case the symptoms of liver disease to watch out for include:
- developing new allergies such as asthma, hay fever, and hives
- excessive itching
- developing skin rashes
- an increased incidence of autoimmune disease
- developing fibromyalgia
- an increase in the incidence of viral and bacterial infections
Spot the symptoms of liver damage and give your liver the chance
to recover
The
health of your liver is not only crucial for a continued holistic health
lifestyle, but is essential for any type of healthy lifestyle. The power of the
liver to heal itself from many diseases brought about by alcoholic or
non-alcoholic fatty liver is quite amazing, provided that the disease is spotted
early, so knowing what the potential symptoms of liver disease are, as
discussed above, and keeping a watchful eye out for them is absolutely crucial.
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