334: When Liver Detox Problems Become Fatty Liver Disease w/ Dr. Ilana Gurevich

The Healthy Skin Show

Did you know that non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common type of liver disease? (And it absolutely is tied to skin issues too!)

Fatty liver disease, also now referred to as metabolic dysfunction-associated liver disease, is the result of inflammation.

It is associated with other common health issues like high lipids, high blood sugar, metabolic syndrome, and autoimmune disease.

The good news is, in the early stages, when you’re just starting to show fatty liver signs (like elevated liver enzymes), fatty liver is reversible!

To share more valuable information about this liver disease, like fatty liver symptoms, how to get diagnosed, NAFLD treatment, and fatty liver diet, I’m joined by Dr. Ilana Gurevich.

Dr. Gurevich is a board-certified naturopathic gastroenterologist and a fellow of the American Board of Naturopathic Gastroenterology. She graduated from the in 2007 with her doctorate in naturopathic medicine from NUNM.

She runs a gastroenterology-focused private practice in Portland, Oregon specializing in treating IBD, IBS, SIBO and other functional GI disorders. She is an educator who lectures about both conventional and natural treatments for gastrointestinal conditions, and is a mentor for physicians, helping them navigate complex GI disorders.

Dr. Gurevich was nominated as a Top Doc by Portland Monthly in 2014, 2016, 2020, and 2021. She was the recipient of the 2022 Borborygmus Lifetime Achievement Award by the GastroANP.

In This Episode:

• What is liver disease?
• Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD): The most common liver disease
• How inflammation causes non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (aka metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease)
• How does high blood sugar affect liver cells?
• Nervous system-liver connection
• What causes fatty liver disease symptoms?
• Microbiome-liver health connection
• How is fatty liver disease diagnosed?
• Who is at risk for fatty liver disease?
• Fatty liver treatment options
• Is drinking coffee or coffee enemas helpful for liver health?

Quotes

“The liver…is the largest organ of detoxification, second to the skin. And because of that, everything is running through it, including all of the pesticides, toxins, immunological factors and everything else that we're exposed to on a daily basis. And in today's day and age, it's very, very easy to make that load on the liver too heavy. When that load on the liver is too heavy, you can get progressive liver disease.”

“Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is the most common liver disease that's out there. And it is associated with a lot of other diseases…It is associated with high lipids. It is associated with high blood sugars and metabolic syndrome…There are factors of liver disease that tie into almost every autoimmune disease, and the sicker you are, the more weight that liver is carrying, so the more likely you are to have an inflammatory process of the liver.”

Links

Find Dr. Gurevich online

Research: https://elifesciences.org/articles/44116

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1. Introduction (00:00:00)

2. What are the stages of liver disease? (00:01:20)

3. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) (00:02:57)

4. How does high blood sugar affect liver cells? (00:04:32)

5. You can't ignore nutrition if you have NAFLD (00:08:00)

6. Nervous system-liver connection (00:08:55)

7. What causes non-alcoholic fatty liver disease symptoms? (00:11:07)

8. Microbiome-liver health connection (00:12:00)

9. How is fatty liver disease diagnosed? (00:14:30)

10. Fatty liver treatment options (00:22:44)

11. Is drinking coffee or coffee enemas helpful for liver health? (00:25:23)

12. Final thoughts (00:28:50)